Rubies in Zoisite
by Experimental
Summary: Dearest Mercury, you asked me to tell you a story... In the Silver Millennium's first and final decades, Zoisite searches for his place in Earth's Middle Kingdom and its destiny. With Bunbo Urawa as witness.
1. Prolegomenon

Rubies in Zoisite

* * *

Prolegomenon

I'm out of shape, the messenger thought. He was not very old, only in his sixties, but the Prince never sent him out so far anymore. He surely wasn't prepared for a climb. It was well past nightfall, and he had finally reached the highest temple on Tian Shan, the majestic Mountain of Heaven, shrouded in mist just as the old paintings showed it. The monks had come out to meet him. They were prepared. The clear young faces and the humble wisened ones all wore the same stern expression of omniscience. They stared at him as though they could read his very soul like a book. He pulled his jacket closer.

"The Prince of Earth has sent me," he said when he caught his breath. "About a fortune-telling. It is very important—"

One of the young men held up a hand to silence him. "We know. Perhaps you should come inside."

"Then I may speak to your lama!"

The young man raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Er, your master. Your fortune teller."

Immediately, the youth waved him inside. He whispered to the older man as he led him down the hall: "The Master told us to expect you, weeks before we received your letter. He has been anticipating this, locking himself away to meditate for days. Frankly, I've been worried for his health, but—you are indeed the man sent from the Capital? I wish I could see it. I didn't know they would be sending a Buddhist—" He put his hand to his mouth. He started to apologize but the messenger waved it away. With a low but proud bow—typical of a student—the young man introduced him to the soothsayer, an old Taoist with a long white beard, with the odd name of Square. "Right on time," he said with a short bow to the messenger, and waved him to sit. The student stood behind, silent.

"The Prince wanted to send for you to read his fortune," the messenger said. "Is it true you come to the palace in the past?"

"Why? Too old to make the journey to Tian Shan yourself?" Square flashed a smile of missing teeth. "I am too old for that now, boy. Even older than you."

"Please, Master Square," said the student with a low bow, "tell the Prince's messenger what he has come to hear."

Square nodded and sobered. He leaned forward. So did the messenger. Master Square was indeed a visionary. His visions seemed to come out of the thin air, without the aid of bones or cards or fire, or any of the typical tools of a street peddler. "First," said Square, "the Prince will have a son."

The messenger nodded. "Yes. He already knows."

"Of course." Square leaned back and regarded his visitor. "You must have a good memory, _ne_? Will the Prince hear all I tell you the same tomorrow?" He waved to the young man. "I will have my student make note of the events, so you do not miss anything important.

"The son," he continued, "will be a great and virtuous Prince, loved by all. It is most convenient because the Moon Princess will have a daughter." He smiled to himself, and spoke as if thinking aloud. "If their children are to marry, then the Earth and the Moon shall consequently be married, and the two powers will not fight to rule over one another, but rule together." He chuckled at the cleverness of the idea.

"That's assuming they like each other," the student added.

The messenger looked up at the interruption; but Square just laughed. "Oh, they will," he said. "Tell the Prince," he said pointing to the messenger, "that is the thing to do, to marry the two. Disregard the mistrust that lies between the kingdoms, for that is their destiny.

"Furthermore," he said, "the gods have revealed something interesting to me that I know you will appreciate, being a follower of your Lord Buddha. They have decided the Heavenly Emperors will be born on Earth once again to guide the kingdom to prosperity."

The messenger sat up. "You mean the _shitennou_!"

"The what?" the student asked.

"They are bodhisattva—er, enlightened ones. Heroes of compassion who chose to remain in the circle of rebirth to help others find enlightenment," he explained, barely able to contain his excitement. By the look on his face, he knew the student still did not understand. "The _shitennou_ were the four warrior emperors who guarded the cardinal winds. Are you certain?" he asked of Square. "How will we know where to find them? Or when?"

"There will be signs. You will find them, I know it. They will know themselves already without knowing. The—_shitennou_, as you call them, will find their matches in the heavens, just like the young Prince they will serve—the soldier princesses of the inner planets. It is your duty to name them, the Emperors. It is very important that they are given the proper names." The messenger leaned forward so he would miss nothing. "They must all be named after the precious green stones: Malachite, Jadeite, Nephrite, and Zoisite. And Beryl, most precious of all—"

"Why is that?" the student interrupted again.

"Green is the color of the Tao, the color of long life, son."

"The legend does say they will live for five hundred years," the messenger added, turning slightly in the youth's direction. "But why stones?"

"Don't question the Tao."

Silence settled in as they waited for Square to say more. To the messenger, it seemed he was drifting off to sleep. Then the old man started and clucked his tongue.

"Listen well," Square began again. "This is very important. The Tao is double-sided. You may be tempted to stray from the instructions I have given you. You will fail to name all of the Emperors properly; but that is only a minor detail in comparison. Conditions will make you separate the young Prince and Princess. If the balance between the Earth and the Heavens is disrupted—and it _will_ be—Evil will undoubtedly find its way in. The Tao resists human assertion, but reason is a terrible and powerful force." He scowled. "Best not to tell the Prince this. He may try too hard to keep the balance intact."

"Then Evil is inevitable?"

Square scowled for a long moment before deciding on a reply. "My duty in this life is to tell the future as it is presented to me. But the real Tao cannot be predicted; it is beyond even my understanding. Only death is inevitable."

As the messenger gathered his few belongings for his return, Square waved to his student. "I wish my apprentice to be your apprentice, messenger. He will accompany you on your journey home."

He opened his mouth to refuse, but Square insisted. "For your protection, and the future's protection," he said gesturing to the notes. "Besides, maybe he will learn something useful in the Capital, about your Buddhist ways perhaps. An open mind is priceless." Square shooed his student away so he could ready himself for the journey, waiting until the boy was out of earshot to say: "There is one more thing you must know. You doubt my predictions, perhaps; but if the Prince is dead in twelve years, what I've said is correct."

The messenger felt his jaw drop. "If the Prince hears that, it will mean certain death. For both of us! Is this a curse?"

"Not a curse," Square assured him. "It is simply part of the vision. The Earth kingdom will be divided. I cannot change it. Besides," he arched his back for emphasis, "I'm an old man and should be dead long before then. It is no worry of mine. I trust _you_ won't tell the Prince—"

It was his duty to tell the Prince, his master and ruler of civilized Earth, everything. But if the last prediction wasn't in the notes—

He shook his head.

"Good," Square said. "Take care on your journey," he called to the messenger and his student as they left the temple. "Remember everything."

—o—

_Dearest Mercury, you asked me to tell you a story. You may not remember my name. It is Bunbo. I am Zoisite's apprentice. Forgive my frankness, for my tone may not seem as humble as I mean it as I write, but above all I must speak honestly. It is with this honesty that I confess I think I have fallen in love with you. Please don't take offense. My feelings are most honorable. Besides, I know I cannot expect you to return my admiration. You are already in love with my master. That was meant to be. But still my admiration exists, and it compels me to share with you these truths._

__

You asked me to tell you a story about him. I am honored, because there is no one besides himself and Heaven that knows Zoisite better than I do.

His story, and the story of all of us, begins, as it always does, before we were born. There was an old man who told the future and lived at the top of the most sacred mountain in the Middle Kingdom on Earth. He saw everything that has happened so far and will happen in our lives. He said the Silver Millennium would not last. I dreamt this, but there is a monk in the Forbidden City who is called Boxy who says it's true. He told me the soothsayer, his first teacher, died only shortly before the time I was born. He told me the soothsayer's spirit is my spirit. That is why I have dreams about the future. I don't really believe him—in my heart I find it hard to—but from what I've seen in my past years in Zoisite's and the Empire's service, thus far the dreams do not lie.

_But you shouldn't worry, princess. The future can always be changed. Let me tell you what has happened this far._

* * *

End of Prolegomenon


	2. Part One

Part One

Imperial City, Siam, in the Southern Tributary Kingdom—

Zoisite turned the folded letter over and over in his fingers absently. He had the introductory words memorized. _To Lord General Zoisite, from the court of his Imperial Majesty, Crown Prince of Earth, Endymion: Urgent. Report to the Middle Kingdom for permanent residency in the Capital._ The rest was redundant. He gave a bored sigh. "'Lord General,' mm? Does this mean we're not emperors anymore, Jadeite?"

Jadeite sighed, causing static to ripple through his image. "You're missing the point," he chided. "You were supposed to be here yesterday. And you still haven't left yet?"

"Why? Is there some sort of emergency?" Zoisite stared into his eyes, and when he got nothing but a blank stare in return—no doubt Jadeite trying to formulate a convincing lie—frowned sarcastically. He tilted his head in mock exasperation just enough so that the woman twisting his hair into a topknot forced it back into place. He pretended to ignore her. Jadeite laughed. "Are you all there waiting for me?" Zoisite said.

"No." The corner of Jadeite's mouth turned up in a mischievous half smile. "_I'm_ coming to get you. Personally."

"How sweet. Well, take your time."

He waved to the woman in dismissal. His comrade on the screen sighed again and shook his head sadly. "Zo-kun, _why_ do I get the feeling you're trying to avoid coming back to the Middle Kingdom?"

Zoisite blinked. "Avoid going back? I wouldn't have left the first time if I hadn't been given this kingdom."

"Then why are you putting it off?" Jadeite fixed him in a scrutinizing stare. "Your notice did say urgent?"

He averted his eyes and relented. "I'm sorry, Jadeite. You can tell the Prince I'll be leaving shortly. You see, it's just—" He smiled sadly. "I have something urgent on my end to attend to."

Jadeite's smile was sympathetic. "You don't have to pretend. I know why you're so keen on staying." Obviously, Zoisite thought, he did not. "Believe me, I felt the same way about leaving home. And I _do_ miss Japan— But it's my duty to be with the Prince, and I must be able to make those kinds of sacrifices. Surely you know that. Think of it as a new life."

It was Zoisite's turn to sigh. He loved Jadeite, but it was outside his capabilities to understand anything beyond himself. "Jadeite," he said, "I've been creating new lives for myself since I was five years old. Now, it's a privilege and a responsibility, I know," he said quickly to stop Jadeite from interjecting, "but— Just stall for me. As a friend. Give me a couple more days. Please?" He looked imploringly to the man on the screen, in reality thousands of miles away, and held his breath.

Jadeite considered briefly. "All right."

"Oh thank you, Jadeite—"

"But I won't take any of the blame for the consequences."

Zoisite smiled and rolled his eyes. "Of course not. I'm grateful, really. And I know you're a busy man so I'll let you go now." He reached toward the button that would sever the connection; but Jadeite beat him to it with a quick salute and a lopsided smile, and a black picture.

I.Murder

_Zoisite never discussed his childhood with me. Aside from the occasional 'when I was your age' story, of course. So I always assumed it wasn't a good one and left it at that, whether I had guessed correctly or not._

__

After a couple years of living with him I was able to see through his unreadable smile. Or know his true feelings on a situation more accurately than even his comrades. Zoisite was expecting a guest, and though he acted very calm about the whole thing, a part of him was dreading it. I had overheard his conversation with Jadeite and found the idea of leaving Siam and staying in the Middle Kingdom most exciting. Of course, Siam is a wonderful, romantic place, but more suited for a vacation than a home. Zoisite was fond of the Middle Kingdom, so it was strange to see him so solemn in light of the matter. He must have been distracted by something larger. He was staring into space as he wound a scarf around his head. I'd never seen him in a turban before, and he looked strange in it—older. All I really know about his past is that he used to live in Araby, too far to the west to be considered part of the Middle Kingdom. That was before he became Zoisite.

He asked me to have coffee sent to his tearoom and to wait for him there. 'I am expecting a very important guest,' he said, 'and that is how tradition rules we should greet someone like him.' I asked if he meant the visitor was from Araby, then, too. He said yes but with some hesitation.

Zoisite told me they would want to be alone. I tried not to think too much about what that implied. If there was trouble, I could always claim ignorance. He gave me authority, told me to make sure no one interrupted him. He smiled at me and adjusted my collar, the way he often does to show his pride in his student.

_He was going to do something terrible._

—o—

Amir Hashim al-Gulzar waited in the reception hall with his small entourage. Dressed in fine cottons and damasks, he was still a handsome man after ten years and had kept fit, though his girth had widened somewhat from drink and decadence. The very sight of him sickened Zoisite but somehow he found the strength to maintain a convincingly genial smile. Inside his heart was racing.

"Welcome, Amir," Zoisite said, stepping forward with his hand outstretched.

Hashim's eyes widened when he saw him, looking Zoisite over incredulously. He smiled; but the smile wavered as he realized Zoisite was not going to embrace him. The young man's hand stayed stubbornly between them. "Shamim?" he asked.

"It's Zoisite, uncle."

"Right." Hashim grinned and finally shook the hand offered to him enthusiastically.

Zoisite gestured for them to follow him, and he led the way down the palace halls, hands clasped at his back. The amir walked beside him. "Let us be frank," Zoisite said as they walked down a cloistered hallway. "There will be time enough for formalities. What brings you this far east? Surely it's not just to see _me_. Are things all right at home?"

The amir cleared his throat. "As well as they could be, I suppose, with all the fighting."

"The fighting?"

"Those barbaric Christians. They seem to think our country belongs to them. I'm losing money and men to the demons. Even Hafiz—"

Zoisite's eyes livened at the mention of his younger cousin. He could picture him riding into battle, shining and righteous, on a horse like Al Borak, just as Hafiz had always said he would. "Ah, yes, Hafiz. How is he, uncle? Surely he must have started a family by now—"

"He's dead." Hashim said it with such indifference, Zoisite was taken aback. "Killed fighting those dirty Christians! Don't you listen?"

Zoisite's smile fell slowly. "How unfortunate," he said.

"But you've done very well for yourself in comparison," said the amir, changing the subject as casually as though they had been discussing the weather. "Got your own kingdom, even if it is a heathen-ridden country." Zoisite sighed. "Got yourself a new, fancy name, Shamim—"

Zoisite scowled. "You can't call me that."

"And why not?"

"It's not my name," he said. He seemed ashamed even to utter it. "Not anymore. —Why, exactly, did you come here, uncle?" he said, eager to leave the matter. "You never looked for me before." Zoisite was thankful for that. "Why now?"

The amir sighed. "My dear nephew, when you disappeared all those years ago, I thought you had been kidnapped or killed. Then I heard there was a young officer in the Imperial service who had apparently run away from his Arabian palace years ago."

"And what made you think it was me?"

The amir held out a card. One look at it and Zoisite stopped in midstride. It was a very accurate portrait of himself—not quite like the photographs of the Middle Kingdom, but similar to those portrait cards of gods and princes the Indians were known for. He wasn't surprised such cards existed, or even that they had made it so far west; but he hated to think his uncle carried around his picture. A peacock cried in the distance, its call seeming to reflect his momentary panic. "_Lord_ Zoisite," Hashim said with a sarcasm that tested Zoisite's restraint, tapping the card, "_emperor_ of the South. The whole bloody thing. They would have me believe you were an angel of Heaven. But I know the truth." The amir sighed. "You haven't changed at all, Shamim. You're just wealthier now."

Of course, Zoisite mused. The amir _would_ want to share in his nephew's new wealth. Well, it would be the death of him. Despite his nerves, Zoisite felt a cruel smile form on his lips. "So, it comes down to money," he said, lowering his voice slightly. "I had a feeling it would. Perhaps it would be best to continue in private." He glanced around at the amir's men. "It's not something I trust to strange ears. You understand."

The amir returned the smile. "Naturally," he said; and with a flick of his wrist abandoned the men who accompanied him to follow Zoisite and his inviting sphinx-like smile.

"I must admit, I've been looking forward to being alone with you again," Zoisite said. Hashim raised an eyebrow mischievously. Zoisite knew how the amir would take his comment, but there was some truth to it. Just not the truth he would expect. "Shall we?" With a grandiose gesture, Zoisite invited him into his private tearoom. It was part of a structure in the center of a wooded courtyard, the roof of which displayed almost to the point of vulgarity the lavish, traditional Siamese style. The inside was of a modern simplicity, with opaque screened doors enclosing the plain room, and cushions surrounding the low table in the center. A dark-haired boy sat at one side of the table, his obvious common looks contrasted by a silk indigo jacket of such a quality of color and embroidery that surpassed that of Hashim's clothing. He was immediately jealous. While Zoisite smiled brightly and parted his lips to speak to the boy, the amir said: "You said private, Shamim. What is—_this_ doing here?"

"My servant," Zoisite lied. "He's mute." And he glared at the boy, who nodded in reply. "I asked him to bring some coffee for us, uncle. And wine, if you'd like it."

"Intoxicating beverages are against _my_ religion, you know," Hashim said with a glare at the floor, but—to Zoisite's pleasure—did not deny his fondness for wine. "How can I forget?" Zoisite muttered, and gestured for the boy to leave and shut the door behind him. The amir sat himself at the table. The coffee had already been served. But Hashim seemed not to notice and looked imploringly toward the wine; and seeing his nephew would not pour it for him, he took the pitcher uncomfortably and poured himself a generous amount. Zoisite waited.

Finally, after he had taken a long drink from his cup and was satisfied with the make, the amir said: "Can we talk about financial matters now?"

"Ah, yes." Zoisite leaned back. "Money is just about all you think about. And it's what you came here to talk to me about, am I right?"

The amir ignored his question. "How did you get this job, anyway?"

He said it with masked distaste and blatant skepticism. What he really meant, Zoisite knew too well, was how the boy had swindled his way to such a high position, and if it only proved the incompetence of the Eastern Empire. "Give me some credit, uncle," Zoisite said. "Do you think I'm really so unworthy of the role of a regional emperor? Remember how my teachers always commented on how bright I was? 'Just like his father.' And so good with numbers. Oh, but you probably didn't pay attention. All right. Truth is—" which it was not; and he looked away as if in nostalgic longing "—I seduced the Prince of Earth and he fell madly in love with me. So he made me his general just before he died."

The amir started. Zoisite tilted his head. "Now, I can't go telling all of the Empire's employment secrets, can I? Especially to someone like you-I'm sorry, I really don't find you very trustworthy at all."

"Shamim, Shamim," the amir said, "I think I deserve more than that. Don't you think it could be remotely possible I could have been just as interested in seeing you?"

"Yes," Zoisite said, "but I'm more worried about how you intended to see me."

Hashim sighed again. "I had to make sure that you were all right since I last saw you, to set my conscience at ease." He drained his cup, and immediately refilled it. "And here you are."

"Yes, here I am. Successful, wealthy, and more beloved and powerful than you could ever realistically hope to be. You want to make a deal. A profitable deal. So why not be honest with me. What do you want?"

The amir hummed, focusing on the dark wine as it swirled around in his cup. "I was hoping you might find it in your civilized heart to give your long-lost uncle a fair share of your earnings."

"You mean cash?" Zoisite offered. "Gold? Jewels? Taels? Or is it land and slaves that interest you?" he added sarcastically. "Not that you'd want to live in a—'heathen-ridden country,' I think you said? Or I suppose a direct trade route with the Southern Kingdom might be nice. You might get favorable treatment from me, being a relation—elephants from the Elephant King even!—if only the Middle Kingdom didn't restrict itself to dealing with honest people."

Hashim only chuckled. "No," he said shaking his head. "I'm interested in something else."

"But I don't have anything more to offer."

"Well, a good portion of your wealth would be put to very good use back home."

"I bet," Zoisite muttered sarcastically as his uncle poured himself another brimming cupful of wine.

"The military is always in need of funding. And then there are taxes. My men have to eat, Shamim, and lately I've come under debts—"

Zoisite shook his head. "If you didn't spend money on yourself all the time—really, uncle, you haven't changed. Oh, your sad condition is almost enough to persuade me to lend you some money. But I know you better than that." He crossed his arms and frowned sternly. "I wasn't going to give you anything anyway, you know. It would all have gone to waste."

Hashim drained his cup. He got up and sat back down next to Zoisite, too close. He lowered his voice. "There's still something else that interests me, Shamim."

"But I said I wouldn't give you any—"

"I'm not stupid, I heard what you said. But if I want something, I'm going to get it. By law I still own you—"

"_That_ law doesn't apply here!"

"But I have ways of making you give me exactly what I want." The amir smiled lazily, and his breath reeked of wine. "_And_ what I rightly deserve. One way or another, you have cost me a lot of time and money in your lifetime, and finally you're in a position to pay it back. Isn't that fortunate?" His hand brushed Zoisite's jaw slowly. The young emperor tried weakly to shrug it off. "I missed you, Shamim," the amir breathed, bringing his lips closer to his nephew's neck. "You don't know how much I've missed being with you."

Zoisite slapped him hard across the face. It was a reflex. And how he'd been waiting to do it. Now he was reminded of why he never tried. Then the amir was on top of him, holding him down with all his weight. Zoisite grunted in surprise and revulsion. The memories he thought he had forgotten surfaced again. It had been trying enough to listen to his uncle call him by that old name. He thought he could do it, get Hashim drunk and flatter him, then finish him at the first opportunity. In theory it was easy. He cursed himself for underestimating the amir. He told himself he could push his uncle off if he concentrated; he'd learned to defend himself from almost anything in the past years, how to use a person's force against them. Somehow he couldn't find the strength now. He would have to wait. "Struggling won't do you any good, Shamim," Hashim said leaning over the young man's ear. "I _will_ have you." Zoisite tried again to push him off, but even drunk and after ten years the amir was still strong enough to pin him down. "Come on. You wanted me to, Shamim, with your coy smiles. Stop struggling. Let me get a look. I won't hurt you." That was a lie. Zoisite knew his sadistic tastes. He was comforted somewhat by the thought that it would soon be over forever.

Hashim's fingers went to the lowest clasp on Zoisite's jacket. Zoisite pushed his hands away, but they only clamped around his wrists. The amir chuckled, enjoying his nephew's grunts and attempts to free his hands. "My, you never learn, do you?"

"You're sick," Zoisite spat, but the amir only grinned. "Get off if you know what's good for you."

Hashim raised his eyebrows. "What's 'good' for me?" He laughed. "What are you going to do? You're cute, Shamim. But you haven't changed that much." Both of Zoisite's wrists still fit into one of his hands. And Hashim pinned them above his head. The instinct to fight the revulsion of the past was almost overpowering, but Zoisite forced himself to be calm. "You still have that pretty face," Hashim said as his fingers traced over Zoisite's features amorously. His free hand went to the loosely wrapped turban and pulled it away; then freed Zoisite's hair from its topknot, letting the long waves slide through his fingers. "You grew your hair out. And still that strange color, I see. It always reminded me of your mother, though when it came to entertainment you were much better." He took Zoisite's chin affectionately, running his thumb over his lower lip. Zoisite repressed the urge to jerk away, but his discomfort must have shown anyway. The amir grinned wider.

And wider still as his eyes and hand moved lower, again to the clasps of Zoisite's jacket. As quickly as he was able with one hand, Hashim unfastened the clasps like a greedy child. Zoisite shut his eyes. He bit his lip when the amir's arm went under the jacket around his waist, and felt all of his weight on top of him. "What's wrong with you?" Hashim hissed, though less with anger than strain. "Why did you stop fighting? The way you kicked and screamed when you were a boy, it was most arousing."

"Is this what you came here for? To humiliate me?"

The amir nodded. "Someone in your position would pay dearly to keep this kind of humiliation out of the public eye, my dear. I think half of your wealth would be just, and enough to keep these little affairs a secret."

"Bastard—"

"Don't you agree?" He raised an eyebrow imploringly.

Zoisite felt the amir's grip on his wrists loosening. He sighed under the amir. "I have nothing to hide, uncle," he said. "I've done worse in my life. But the least I can do is give you what you deserve."

Hashim hesitated. "You mean, you'll give me everything I want?"

"Yes," Zoisite lied.

"Even yourself?" Zoisite nodded, but Hashim's pout indicated he wasn't buying. But he wasn't making sense either. Zoisite could see the effects of his back-up plan start to show. It had taken long enough. Then the amir's lips turned up in a wicked and disgustingly proud smile. "Glad you finally see things my way, Zoisite." And he bent his head to his nephew's throat, releasing his grip on Zoisite's wrists completely.

Zoisite was fast. Before the amir's lips touched him he had a familiar dagger's tip against Hashim's throat. "You've grown careless, uncle," Zoisite said, forcing Hashim to sit up. The dagger made a deeper indent. "Now I'll have to kill you."

The amir pushed his hand away, but the wine, sedative enough alone, had been fixed. With a sharp blow and speed, Zoisite pinned him to the floor, his free hand around Hashim's throat, knees pinning his arms down. The dagger's edge rested neatly in the line just below his Adam's apple.

"You traitor—you _liar!_" Hashim spat with definite panic. "After all I've done for you! You promised me—"

A jerk of Zoisite's wrist quieted him. "So I lied. I did say I would give you what you deserved." He leaned more weight on his wrists, relishing the amir's futile grunt. "Now you'll listen to _me_, uncle," he hissed through clenched teeth. "I've been waiting a long time to kill you. I spared your life that night I ran away. I would have killed you then, for what you did to me. For killing my father, and making my mother sick to her death. And yet you have the temerity to come back and presume to still have the upper hand. You are no relation of mine. You should have stayed at home." The amir's panicked noises had a delightful ring to Zoisite's ear. There was nothing Hashim could do to stop him.

He applied pressure on the blade, and felt the reluctant give of the flesh as he cut through a layer of flesh. The amir screamed. His hot, thick blood spilled onto Zoisite's hands as he urged the blades a bit deeper.

—o—

_I had my ear to the door. The amir's men were breathing down my neck, and growing impatient that I, a mere boy, should be giving orders to them to keep back. They were concerned for the safety of their prince, they said. Well and I was concerned for the safety of mine. Lucky for me they could not hear the screaming on the other side. I was frightened when it stopped, along with the awful gurgling that put a knot in my stomach. I wanted so much to open the door, to make sure Zoisite was well, but I could not disobey him._

__

At last the door slid open. Just part way. Zoisite looked through the opening at me. Flushed and out of breath, clutching his jacket closed, he looked ill. Dreadfully ill, that it probably took a serious effort to steady himself without vomiting. He was grinning, though, as he asked me to fetch guards and someone to clean up the mess. I nodded—what else could I do? But different images flashed through my head as I dared to wonder what had happened only moments before.

_Then relief and horror hit me from each side. When he closed the door, there was blood on his fingers._

II.Death

She was dead. An hour later it still seemed incredible: such that he hadn't shed a single tear, and was unable to. The boy paced nervously back and forth across the empty hall. Curly golden bangs that had worked themselves out from under his turban tickled his brow, but he hardly noticed them in his numbness, and did not think to pause and tuck them away. There was no one left to protect him now. She's dead, he repeated to himself, hoping the meaning of the words might sink in enough to produce a tear if they raced faster through his brain. She's dead. She's dead, dead, _dead_—

"Young master?"

Startled, the boy raised his eyes. For the briefest moment fear crossed his expression, but quickly disappeared as he recognized the face of the attendant. "Yes," he answered with a relieved sigh and let his tired shoulders slump.

The man was at his side in seconds. He must have seen the exhaustion and pain in the young prince's eyes, for he put a consoling hand on the boy's arm. And how the boy wanted to lean into that touch, that small bit of comfort—to turn and be embraced by someone who loved him—to bury his face in the man's shoulder and to finally be able to release all of his grief. If only they were the arms of his father! With that wish the sadness of years swelled again. He really had lost everyone. What am I going to do? he wondered. He could only bow his head. "Are you all right?" the attendant asked, bending to look imploringly into the boy's face.

He looked up and faked a smile. "Fine."

When he saw the man did not believe him he reached up to wipe at phantom tears and gave himself away. He could not believe himself either. "Come. Let us get you something to eat," the attendant offered, as if all that troubled him was an empty stomach. And the boy followed with a weak nod.

—o—

She was dead. She was ill. She couldn't take it, seven years of anger and hopelessness. He wished she could have been stronger; but she had hurt so much, and now she was dead. He supposed it was better than suffering, but why did she have to die today, the last day of Ramadan? Everyone was supposed to be celebrating. And they did, forgetting she had ever existed and celebrating—or perhaps her death was part of the reason. It was sacrilege they showed. Even _he_ did not mourn. Out of all, he should have been the one, if only out of moral duty and not feeling. But of course, it was his fault that she died.

"Shamim?"

Interrupted from his thoughts, Shamim looked up. It was only his cousin Hafiz, staring at him between mouthfuls of rice. "What?" he asked shortly.

"You've been staring into space all night, Shamim. You haven't even touched the food."

"So what? I'm not hungry."

"And you're fidgeting again," the dark-haired boy pointed out, shoveling more rice into his mouth. Shamim looked down at his hands, folded in his lap, and sighed. Mentally he cursed his childish habit—and quickly shied away from the other boy's hand as it shot to his forehead. He was in no mood to be touched. "You're not ill. Are you feeling all right?" Hafiz asked, slightly offended by Shamim's rejection.

Shamim nodded, then shook his head. She was dead, how could he? His cousin stared, waiting for any response as he continued to eat. Shamim sighed. He really didn't want to speak, and looked back down at his hands. His cousin was all he had left. But even he was little comfort. How could he expect Hafiz to understand when his own mother was alive and well?

"My father is going to take us hunting tomorrow," Hafiz said. "Maybe catching something will make you feel better." He watched Shamim's eyes as he said it, hoping to inspire some humor in his fair-haired cousin.

Shamim only pouted. "It won't, and I won't go. My mother is dead, Hafiz. Don't you understand that?"

"Yes, but—cousin—I only want you to be happy."

"Don't waste your energy," Shamim whispered. "It was all your father's fault anyway."

"You can't mean that." He put his clean hand on Shamim's shoulder. "Forget it. Please. Come out with me tomorrow—"

"No! I don't want to be anywhere near him!"

"What's all the fuss?" Shamim started. His uncle, the amir looked up from a carefree conversation with his friends on the other side of the table. Smiling, as usual, despite the recent tragedy. "Shamim?" he said gently, but Shamim recognized a hard edge. "Is something bothering you?"

"Nothing, sir," Shamim mumbled and looked away.

"I should hope not." He enjoyed a healthy laugh with his friends. "Tonight is the end of your fast. You should be happy! Come on, drink." Shamim sat still. The amir's smile dropped. "Eat something, son."

Shamim shook his head. He tried to keep his voice from wavering, saying, "Uncle, I cannot even think of celebrating tonight. And how can you when your wife is dead?" He shivered. "It's a pity: she was a great woman and deserved more than you. You know she fell ill because of you. You could at least show her spirit some respect."

"That's enough, boy!" The amir Hashim warned. "I don't know where you get such mad ideas, but you should learn when is _not_ the time to bring them up." And he turned back to his friends, resuming a smile and a crude, sexist joke that made Shamim's insides turn.

"Listen to me, uncle," Shamim continued louder. He knew he should just give up and let the subject die. Better than risking another beating. But he felt the blood rush to his head and the words to his tongue and he couldn't stop. Hafiz pulled his arm anxiously. "Please, Shamim," he begged his cousin in a whisper. "Don't. You'll get in trouble again!" Shamim shrugged him off and stood. "You act like her death is a joke. This celebration has nothing to do with the end of Ramadan. You couldn't be happier now that she's finally gone!" The amir paled. "You never loved her. You hate me and you hated my mother, and if she wouldn't give in to you, you couldn't wait for her to die!"

Amir Hashim flushed with anger. Without a word he stood quickly and was at the boy's side. He grabbed Shamim roughly by the arm, digging his fingers in. Shamim gasped in fear, but stared his uncle straight in the face and hissed through gritted teeth "Don't touch me!" as he struggled to get out of the man's grip.

Hashim leaned close. "Don't you mock me, boy. If I were your father—"

"You're _not_ my father!" Shamim knew by confronting the amir he asked for severe punishment, but this time he was too angry to be afraid. "How dare you even compare yourself to my father," he hissed. "He was a great man and a wise king. _You_ are a coward and a drunk, filthy pig—"

"Shut up!" The amir shook him angrily. "If I weren't a God-fearing man," he spat, "I might kill you for such impudence."

"Then do it!" the boy challenged. "What's stopping you? She's dead! What more do you have to be afraid of? Rather you beat and bed me first like you always have?"

Amir Hashim went livid with rage. "You disrespectful—" he started through gritted teeth, gripping Shamim's jacket. His fist shook with his anger but he didn't dare use it in front of the crowd. "Have you forgotten? You're mine to do with as I wish. I am your guardian, your master. Whatever you have gotten you deserved. You should be grateful you still live like a prince."

"I _am_ a prince," Shamim said indignantly. "I always will be."

Amir Hashim smiled. "Do you honestly believe that? What power do you have? You are nothing. Your parents are both dead and certainly no one here cares about you." He paused to let the words sink in. Shamim knew he was right. Glancing at the staring faces, he recognized no one who had ever lifted a finger to help him. His eyes fell on Hafiz, who could only look on nervously. "They all know what you really are," his uncle continued in a whisper, "my burden. When your father died, _I_ protected you and provided for you and your widowed mother—just as the prophet Muhammad bade. And from both, what thanks did I ever receive in return? Nothing," he mouthed with a sadistic relish. "You were so ungrateful. Don't you think your father would have wanted this?"

Shamim looked at him, determined not to be swayed by the same old arguments. It was impossible. He knew it in his heart. His father would never have wanted such a terrible life for his family. No, he thought, he would still be alive if it weren't for your scheming and jealousy. Hashim killed him. But he didn't need to say it: everyone knew the truth and no one cared. But Shamim never did believe his father could have had any compassion for his sick brother. "You lie," he said. "You're a _liar_." Hot, angry tears welled up in his eyes. He could think of nothing more satisfying than to kill the amir: strangling him so no more terrible words could ever come out. "A murdering liar!"

A hard backhanded slap and he found himself on the floor. He managed to catch a cry before it betrayed his defiance. A long length of unraveled cloth fell in front of his face as he sat staring at the floor.

"Father, please stop!" Hafiz panted. He hugged the amir, trying to come between him and his cousin. "It's a celebration night, father. Please don't hurt him again—" But Shamim knew there was nothing a boy of ten years could do. He forgave Hafiz for yielding when his father pushed him aside. Hashim had finally lost his patience. The room had fallen silent. All the men expected the amir to beat him now for certain. Whether they hoped Hashim would stop or waited for blood, they stared. Shamim waited for the next blow.

Instead, Amir Hashim grabbed the back of his coat and dragged him up for his friends to see. Shamim gasped in surprise and clasped his captor's arm. At least a blow would have been briefer. The seams of his jacket dug into his armpits. He gritted his teeth against the pain. "This boy has been nothing but trouble for seven years," his uncle said to his friends through his teeth, his voice wavering with religious passion. "I cared for him like a father for a son and received nothing but hatred in return."

"_Liar!_" Shamim sobbed. "You never cared for me! Unless rape is your idea of kindness. You never even recognized me unless you needed something to scourge!"

The amir's face twisted in outrage. "Devilry!" he proclaimed. "He deserved it, that—_atheist_." Shamim was not prepared when his uncle pushed him away and grabbed his unraveled turban. It came away and the amir yanked a fistful of his short, golden hair. He cried out. The sharp pain in his scalp brought fresh tears to his eyes. "He tempts," the amir repeated, gesturing with the curls in his fist with total disregard for their owner, "with _this!_ And his eyes: emerald green. Surely _these_ are the marks of a devil!"

"No, no!" Shamim gasped. "They are my mother's—"

"Also a devil!"

"No!" He shut his eyes tight and felt the hot moisture squeeze out of the corners and run down the side of his face, and over his burning cheek. "Please, uncle." He hated himself for begging. "Don't condemn _her_—"

Hashim ignored him. "My poor, dear brother," he sobbed. "If only he knew ahead of time. Those two were the death of him. And you, Shamim—" With that he twisted his fingers around the boy's hair and pulled harder, sadistically. "You killed your mother. You. It wasn't I. She worried herself to death over you. You were always being disrespectful. If you had been a good little boy you would never have been punished, and your mother would never have fallen ill with worry."

Shamim fought back a sob. "Say what you will, uncle," he said through clenched teeth. "You and I both know there isn't a soul here who doesn't know the truth. Even Allah—"

For his remark the boy was rewarded with another quieting slap. "How _dare_ you speak to me of God!" Hashim hissed with raised fist. "You can't even be called a Muslim. Never circumcised. Skips prayers. You have no discipline, no piety." The hypocrisy made Shamim furious but he kept silent. He knew it was possible he had already sentenced himself to death, and for once didn't care. But he had done enough damage already: several of the amir's men looked as if they had lost their appetites. He knew what was coming to him when Hashim dragged him to his feet and said those all-too familiar words: "But I'll teach you some respect."

—o—

Shamim hurt everywhere. For the several long minutes since he had awakened he lay still. The slightest movement caused pain to flare up again somewhere in his body. His arms were almost numb now from being held above his head for so long. He wanted so much to be able to move them except they were bound to the bedpost. The ropes bit into his wrists. His legs had begun to cramp badly, and all over his skin felt tender from blows that were sure to leave a pattern of bruises. His hips hurt worst of all, whether he moved or stayed perfectly still; and he preferred the latter more out of fear than comfort. This time was worse than before. The amir had already been furious with him, and made lusty and more violent and confident by his drinking. He had entered the locked room with the taboo heavy on his breath. Shamim could still distinguish it from the awful stench of sex. He was humiliated. Reduced to kicking like an animal while he was hit and touched in most vile ways. The adrenaline rush of the confrontation in the dining room had long since subsided into nausea. Now sobs welled up in his throat in place of curses.

The amir stirred in his sleep. The one arm he had left flung over Shamim's waist shifted but would not fall off. Shamim cringed at the touch of that arm, that only reminded him of his nakedness and all the shame that it implied. Tears rolled freely down the side of his face onto the sheets. All he ever wanted was what every boy surely did, to live happily with his mother and father beside him, to have them love him. Of course, all that had to be taken away. Could God really hate him that much? God didn't even have the compassion to end his life. Part of him had hoped he might provoke his uncle to murder. It would have been easier, and at least he would not have to live with the memories. But if he would not be killed, he would escape.

Shamim worked at the rope as quietly as he could, making his hands as small as possible, loosening and twisting out of the bonds millimeters at a time. After minutes he was just able to slip one hand free; the next was easy. The blood rushed back into his arms. Shamim slowly and carefully slid himself out from under the amir's arm and off the edge of the bed—and hit the floor hard.

He held his breath. The amir did not move. He breathed heavily in his sleep, apparently too intoxicated and exhausted to notice a little thud. Shamim was safe for the moment, but he knew he would have to move quickly if he was to leave without anyone noticing. Keeping a watchful eye on his uncle, he groped for his clothes. Some of the seams were torn. Thankfully his jacket was only missing a couple frogs. He found some golden baubles and jeweled pieces in his uncle's cabinets, and took as many of them as would fit in his pockets. He would need new clothes, and food and water.

His eyes fell on the amir's dagger. It was a popular little dagger: he was well acquainted with it. It had been set aside just out of reach most nights the amir had his way with him, after it was held against his throat to cease his fighting. Shamim held it up with a reverential hatred. It had tasted his blood more than once, and he could only guess how many others'. His fingers shook as they slid around the handle. A perfectly comfortable fit. He knew what he had to do as he walked back to the bed, this time with a pleasant anticipation. He leaned forward over his uncle, his heart beating furiously from the sudden rush of adrenaline. Even asleep the amir was a handsome man; but Shamim knew the monster he really was, and it was that monster he was going to kill. Trembling, he laid the edge of the blade with malicious precision against the exposed side of the amir's throat. All he had to do was cut down and back, swiftly before Hashim woke. He took a deep breath and braced himself for blood.

Shamim closed his eyes. Something in his mind, some staying hand like the one that spared Ishmael kept him from cutting into that flesh that so repulsed him. The irony only further convinced him he received no sympathy from above. Lucky bastard. He drew the knife back and slipped it into his sash. It might still come in handy. But how he wanted to plunge it into the monster on the bed. He stepped back. Hashim would live this time. But, Allah, if I ever see him again, he vowed, I will kill him.

Shamim drew a sheet of thick silk around himself, making sure it covered his head and face, as well as his torn clothes. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Aside from his own eyes staring back, he could be mistaken for a woman.

Without a look back, he unlocked the door silently and slid out into the hall. Luckily, it was empty. And no one bothered to stop him or ask him where he was going, except ironically for the occasional guard offering his help and protection. Shamim brushed them off. He could make it outside by himself. And when he looked out at the landing against the night sky, he was relieved to see a ship on the small pad. It was an Imperial design, sporting a tall red sail, and was blocky rather than streamlined and air-tight like one of those high-altitude Lunar models. It was not often one of those came this far West, let alone any airship at all. Where this one was going, it didn't matter. It was his ticket out.

Shamim waited for the men loading the ship to finish and speak to the amir's men for clearance. It would take them long enough and no one would notice him climbing aboard. There were piles of rugs in one of the storage rooms, perfect for hiding and for a bed. He would deal with the merchants in the morning. Nothing, he assured himself, could be worse than facing his uncle's temper. Wherever he found himself in the morning, there he would start a whole new life.

Settling down among the rugs, he thought of his mother, whom he would never see again, and cried himself to sleep.

* * *

End of Part One


	3. Part Two

Part Two

The sun was high in the clear sky over Nagpur, and hot. Even hotter than the sun in Araby, Shamim thought, but there he had spent most of the day inside. He was glad the Muslim traders put up a canopy for shade. They had set up their tent in the park outside a garishly painted temple, meaning no offense to the local gods in which they had no faith, but knowing thousands of potential tippers passed by there every day. Indeed, their music, though foreign, and refreshments, though ordinary, were like purifying incense on the visitors—part of the experience of worship and the awe of being that melted away the little differences like language that separated them.

Since his arrival in India, Shamim had stayed with this band of musicians and beverage-sellers and tradesmen because they spoke his language—although he took the opportunity to learn the one used in the Middle Kingdom from the locals. Life was well with these traders. Full of travel and adventure and humor—living one day at a time, living to sing praises of God. They had taken a liking to him, whether it was they treated him as a sister's son or as a pet who performed tricks. They took extra care to protect him from the burning sun—he was so fair after all—and made sure he ate well, but they intended to preserve his voice above all. "Break's over," one of them said in passing, commanding but not harsh. For the traders, time was money, and Shamim earned them their tip. He took another swallow of water and went back to sit with the musicians who were tuning their instruments. It was a humble life he led among them, and though he constantly felt he did not deserve the kindness he was given, he would not have traded it for all the palaces of Araby. For the few weeks he'd lived with the traders, he had told no one about his heritage. He didn't think anyone would believe him if he did.

I.Bardo

The Maharani had spent most of the day looking for a replacement for the companion she had hired for her son. He had rejected him the day before. That boy interrupted his studies and could not sit still, he had said. Only her son would be bored by a diversion. She checked the orphanages and even the schools, where sometimes an intelligent child could be borrowed from his family for a chance to live in the palace. But she had had no such luck.

Passing through the park by the temple, she stopped with her small train to see the crowds gathered by a tent that had been set up by Muslim merchants. Musicians played under the canopy, some on the harsh and mysterious strings of the West, and some on the lyrical veena and droning sanpura; and the singers knew both the quawwals of their own language and some Indian ragas. The crowd appreciated both. A few were silent so as not to miss a single righteous note, but most talked or carried fussing children while they listened.

It was one of the young singers that caught the Maharani's eye. His voice stood out from the others before she saw him. He sang high, his voice still young—but how it carried was what caused her to stay and listen. As he hit the higher notes going into a random harmony, where the throat tends to shift the flow of air, his voice changed as though it were not a human voice at all but another instrument completely. Indeed, it was an offering to God, directly from the soul, as pure and full as the notes of the other plane should be. The Maharani felt moved by such admirable piety. His voice was commanding, which—the Maharani mused once she got a glimpse of him—fit well with his princely posture and the fine damask jacket he wore. He didn't look like the rest of the Arabs. With golden hair and keen green eyes she suspected something more exotic in his blood. In any case, she would find out more about him when the musicians took their break.

She had a feeling about this one. Her son could like him.

—o—

Shamim drew the raga to a steady, lingering end. The gathered audience showed their appreciation with quiet applause and coins for all the musicians. Not once during the twenty minutes that had passed had he felt himself or his voice tiring; but now that they had stopped—and as with every time—he felt a little weight lifted from his shoulders. He went back into the tent for more water, and saw a woman speaking to the trader who acted as his master. By her looks, Shamim could tell this woman was of high class—or caste, as he heard them refer to it here. Her emerald green sari was exquisite and she wore more gold and pearl jewelry than any woman he had seen before in India or Araby. She must have been very important, because the merchant referred to her as 'ladyship'.

"Yes, ladyship," he said. "He is indeed a prize. A gift from Allah if there ever was one."

"What is his upbringing?" the woman said.

"Difficult to say, ladyship. He was a stowaway on a merchant airship."

So they were talking about him. Shamim held his breath and listened closer, hoping they wouldn't see him eavesdropping.

"Is he trouble, then?" asked the woman.

The trader shook his head. "Not at all, ladyship. In fact, he is very well mannered and obedient but holds his own. Serious, but good-natured and quick-witted. No one could hope to raise a better boy—except you, of course, ladyship."

The woman smiled. "He sounds perfect, indeed. I need a companion for my son, and I am prepared to reimburse you if you would allow me to take custody. Does he speak the language?"

"Oh, yes, ladyship," the man said with a bow. "He is a fast learner. And very good with numbers. In fact, thanks to his accounting, we found money we never even knew we had."

The woman's eyes widened and she smiled. A very pleasant smile, Shamim thought. She reminded him of his mother, although dark-haired and exotic, and he knew he could trust her if he was indeed to be sold into her services. "I must see the boy face-to-face. Can you bring him to me?"

"Of course, ladyship." The man bowed again, and the greedy look in his eyes was unmistakable. He turned toward Shamim, and started when he saw him standing there already. "Why, here he is! Sneaky boy. Well, show the Maharani some respect." Shamim stepped forward and bowed. He wasn't sure how best to show respect here, but had learned something from the officials from the Middle Kingdom who had commanded the merchants' vessel.

"How old are you, young sir?" the Maharani said in a very sure and gentle voice Shamim liked.

He smiled. "I'm twelve, ma'am."

The trader took control of the conversation again. "His name is Shamim. It means 'fragrant' in Arabic, your ladyship, like the frangipani. And the complexion of a fine damask rose, wouldn't you say, ladyship? A fine example of Western beauty—although I'm certain your son is gifted in that department as well. And you've heard his voice—"

"Yes, but I'm more interested in his entire person. My son needs a competent mind to match his own. If he has it, I wish to take him off your hands."

The trader spread his palms. "For you, ladyship, I would gladly give without asking for payment," he said with melodrama. "Your satisfaction is payment enough. But, you see, he is of great value to us, what with his voice and all, so the deal for you—"

Shamim shook his head. The Maharani was negotiating with the most miserly of the Arab traders, and yet she seemed to know it. And he felt honored. He wanted to stay and hear how valuable the merchant thought he really was—or what the Maharani was willing to pay, for that matter—but the musicians beckoned. The crowd was waiting for another song. With such good prospects ahead, Shamim knew he would sing his best today.

—o—

_India was where Zoisite spent his adolescence. He never talked much about that either—except when it related to my studies. India is a country with an incredibly long history of great mathematicians and philosophers. The Indians have all sorts of books on mathematical theory—physics and astronomy. It is a land of culture, with brightly colored temples and brightly dressed people everywhere. There are great marble palaces and temples built by ancient men and reclaimed by the jungle, where leopards and tigers and monkeys live like kings. There are more gods than I could ever keep track of. Their likenesses are carved everywhere and you can almost feel their spirits, like the _kami_, around you in everything. No wonder it was the birthplace of Buddha._

__

I accompanied Zoisite on several of his visits there. Each time I felt more and more in awe of the beautiful country that was almost a fantasy: everything—wealth and poverty, human and natural, intellectual and mundane—pushed to the extremes. He was always reluctant to go, though. I wouldn't understand it myself, but it has something to do with his past life. That is, before he became Zoisite. There was something there he wanted to forget—but, as I said, he rarely discussed it with me.

_And Nephrite was from India._

—o—

"So, you purchased me?" Shamim didn't like using formalities, and lucky for him the Maharani didn't mind not receiving them.

She chuckled, her laughter like cool water pouring into a cup. "I wouldn't normally," she said frankly, friendly, "but you Arabs always seem to want payment for a custody trade. Here we call that slavery."

Her eyes were warm and concerned, but Shamim looked down at his fidgeting hands in shame. "We call it slavery, too. I don't like it." He wanted to tell her he was a prince—or used to be—but he doubted she would believe him any more than the merchants. "I'm not used to it myself," he said instead.

"Well." The Maharani put her free hand on his shoulder, saying: "You'll not have to worry about that anymore." She turned to him, studying him. "You're not an Arab, are you?"

"Of course I am," Shamim answered, but she gave him a strange look anyway. He decided it was best to change the subject. "How much did they think I was worth?" he was curious to know.

The Maharani chuckled, her laughter like cool water pouring into a cup. "Less than I wanted to give them," she said. "But if you decide to stay, I will give them even more. I understand you are a valuable asset wherever you go."

"If I 'decide' to stay?"

"My son can be hard to please," she said with a sigh; "but even if by chance he does want to keep you, who am I, just one mortal woman, to say where you belong?"

They walked to the marble palace together, under the tasseled parasol she held over herself and Shamim. When they arrived, the Maharani brought him to a shady courtyard where tables and chairs had been set out under lengths of dyed cotton that rippled in the breeze. A dark-haired boy Shamim's age sat in one of the chairs, reading a book with such concentration he didn't notice the two of them enter. "Rohan," the Maharani said to him, "I've brought you a new companion." She turned to Shamim briefly with a smile. "This is my son Rohan. You'll like this one, Rohan. Stop reading that book and say hello."

Shamim bowed then, since it seemed to be the proper thing to do before a prince. When he looked up, Rohan was staring at him steadily. His eyes were a gentle brown, but deeper and wiser than they should be for one his age. He had a handsome face that reminded Shamim of Hafiz, but not half as nave. He wore his hair down over his shoulders, and it was curly and auburn and shone brilliantly where the light hit. He was dressed finely, and even wore a long strand of pearls that Shamim guessed would not have been there if the boy had any say. It shamed him, because he only had his old jacket and a new but simple pair of Indian trousers. He could be friends with this boy Rohan, he thought. He really wanted to be. But Rohan was frowning at him.

"Hello," he said to Shamim, out of courtesy. He looked at the Maharani and said, "I don't want him."

"Isn't that rather sudden?" she said. "Here I've bought him for you and you won't even take the time to know him." Rohan didn't want to argue, Shamim saw. He started when his mother said 'bought' and shot a bashful glance at Shamim. "Why don't you two get to know each other," the Maharani said, motioning for Shamim to sit. She gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder before turning to tend to other matters. A servant put a sweet-smelling refreshment on the table before Shamim's chair. He hesitated because Rohan still had not given his approval. For some reason that bothered him. It had nothing to do with his new position, because inside he still felt like a prince.

"She's very nice," he said shyly, "your mother."

"Yes," said Rohan, but had turned back to his book. "Now, do you mind? I'm studying."

But Shamim had caught a glimpse of the pages and was too intrigued to hear him. "What is that book you're reading?"

Rohan looked at him uncomfortably. "It's about the planets."

"Really?" Shamim dropped into his seat and leaned forward over the table. "Can I see it?"

The Indian prince's eyes lit up. "Are you interested in the planets, too?" he said.

Shamim nodded. "I've read a little of Aristotle and Ptolemy. As much as I could get my hands on, I suppose." He glanced over the pages Rohan put before him, of elaborate drawings of distant places. At a second glance, they weren't drawings at all. "But I haven't seen anything like this!" Shamim said in awe. There were pictures of the kingdoms of Mars and the Jovian moons that fascinated him. No one from Araby had ever been above the planet, and most chose not to believe in the planetary kingdoms other than as myths and children's stories. "Where did you get it?"

"It was a gift from the Capital," Rohan said. "Do you like it?"

There was no doubting Shamim he did. "Do I like it? It's incredible!" he exclaimed, beaming as he poured over the pictures. Rohan cracked a smile as well. If his mother had been watching still, she would have called it unusual, even miraculous, he smiled so little lately. "Do you like strategic games?" he asked with sudden interest. "The last one didn't at all." Shamim nodded. "And mathematics?"

"I like them very much."

"Good," Rohan said with a chuckle, "then you can help me with my schoolwork."

Shamim sipped his drink. It was like nothing he'd ever had. It seemed everything was better in India. He told Rohan so, and the prince smiled fondly. "In Araby," he said, "there's a saying about seeing the elephant. Here, I've already seen dozens! I must have died and this is heaven."

Rohan laughed. "My father's on a hunting expedition in the jungle," he said. "He's going to bring me back a tiger. Maybe a cub, if I'm lucky, and we can train it to hunt for us, and follow us through town like a dog and scare everyone." He became solemn suddenly. "I wanted to go, but he wouldn't let me. He said it was too dangerous, and that I had someone here to keep me company. Well, that boy was no good. All he wanted to do was play." He met Shamim's eyes. "I'm very glad she found you. It must have been—"

"_Kismet_," Shamim said. Rohan looked at him in confusion. "Fate. If you believe in it."

"I do." Rohan's earnestness was unfamiliar to Shamim after so many years of living in insincerity. But it was comforting, the thought that someone cared for him now, even a stranger. Though when he had said fate—even though he told himself he didn't believe in fate—it _felt_ true. "What about your family?" Rohan asked.

Shamim sighed. "I don't have one," he said. "My father died when I was only a child. He was murdered. I loved him very much, but my uncle—I was always afraid of my uncle. He was a monster." He couldn't bring himself to admit he was his uncle's catamite as well. He wouldn't tell anyone that as long as he lived. Rohan met his eyes, and Shamim was so startled he looked away, his heart beating fast. He had the irrational fear that Rohan would read his thoughts. He never wanted pity, but he couldn't stand to see someone's shock either. "Then my mother got sick, because there was no one left to love us. And we couldn't see each other any more—"

"Why?" Rohan asked.

"Well, because of the harem." The prince looked confused. "It's complicated. In Araby, wives live in the harem and no one is allowed to see their faces all the time except their husbands. And their children."

"But you were her son."

"My uncle didn't want her to see me." Shamim felt his fist clench. To think about it again was difficult; but to his ears, it was as though he was saying these things like they were part of someone else's life. "She died just before I ran away from home."

Rohan looked away sadly. He said, "Perhaps we could be brothers. You could have a new mother. And someone to love you."

Shamim smiled.

"Oh! But you never told me your name."

He had forgotten about that, and was surprised now that the maharani had not introduced him. "Well," Shamim said, "since we'll be brothers, I suppose I'll need a new name."

"I know the perfect one." Rohan sat back and looked away contemplatively. "My mother used to tell me stories about Krishna," he started. "There is one about a boy named Sudama who lived with only his mother in the jungle. Every day he had to go through the jungle to get to school, but there was a tiger in the jungle that frightened him. One night his mother fell ill and Sudama had to hurry to the village to get help, through the jungle in the dark. But along the way the tiger followed him. It would have caught him too if, suddenly, Krishna, whom the boys in the village called the little King, had not appeared to him in the wild as a fellow classmate and saved him. Protecting each other, they swore an alliance and became blood brothers."

Rohan sat back. "Your uncle sounds like that tiger," he said gently. "But you ran away from it and came here. So, I could be your brother, and I could call you Sudama."

_Sudama_, Shamim repeated in his head. It would be his name from now on. It sounded fitting. There was one more thing he needed to say. It nagged at him to give it a voice now that he could. "I want to tell you something," Shamim said. "I must: I can't hold it in anymore. I haven't told this to anyone since I've been in India because I don't have any proof other than my word. No one would believe me."

"I would believe you," Rohan said, and Shamim knew it was true.

"My father was a sultan—that's like a maharaja here. That means I would be one too when I got older. That is, if my uncle didn't take control."

As the realization hit Rohan, his dark eyes seemed to light up within, and Shamim knew in his heart he no longer had to worry. "So you're a prince, too."

II.Rebirth

_It was after the death of Nephrite's father, who was attacked by a wild tiger of Bengal, that a group of monks from the Capital went to visit Nagpur. Boxy was among them. He was a _chela_, a disciple of Buddhism at the time. Perhaps it wasn't best to leave a student in charge of finding and naming the third of the _shitennou_, but there was no other choice. He told me there were only two men who had heard his Master Square's exact instructions on the subject, and the messenger who was the second was in poor health. (I remembered the old man when Boxy told me, though I never met him—but that is another matter.)_

_Boxy had only found two of his Heavenly Guardians thus far, years before, and time was running out. He felt the weight of an empire on his shoulders as he boarded the airship headed for the west. The old Prince had just been laid in his tomb, and the new one—the boy Endymion—needed his vassals. Boxy went to those ancient jungles of India only to find the young maharaja and name him Emperor of the West. The rest, you and I know, is history._

—o—

"Have you got it yet?"

"Not yet," Rohan said, squinting into the eyepiece. "Patience," he sang and turned the focus. The pale face of the waxing gibbous moon became a crisp image in the telescope. The sunset gave the craggy gray surface a pinkish tinge, and it was still too light in the sky to see any lights from the cities that dotted its face. Rohan told Sudama so as he let him look into the instrument.

"I can see the domes, though," Sudama said.

"Can not." The young prince called his bluff, but he wanted to see for himself to make sure.

Sudama grinned triumphantly. "You're right," he said. "But you wait until it's completely dark." He watched Rohan focus in and out with utter fascination and smiled.

It had been his idea to make a telescope. Sudama remembered having one at home—the home he had tried not to think about since he was brought into the Indian palace. His was a toy, and it was supposed to be used for navigation, but he couldn't help pointing it at the stars outside his window—as he was sure every boy did—and seeing them for more than mere pinpricks of light. But after he suggested it to the engineers at Nagpur, instead of handing him back a tube with lenses on each side they brought a machine with focusing keys and different sizes of lenses. "I still can't believe you never had a telescope, Rohan," Sudama said, making the new version sound like nothing special.

The prince shrugged. "I bet the Chinese have them," he said with his eye still to the lens. "The Capital has the most advanced observatory in the world. They must have a huge telescope."

"But isn't everything there confidential?"

Rohan shrugged again. "Maybe. But someday I'm going to go there and look at the moon through their _big_ telescope." He turned to Sudama with a conspiring smile. "I bet you can even see the Moon Palace's parties with a machine like that!"

"I bet you could even see down the guests' dresses with a machine like that!" Sudama joked, imitating his brother, and the two laughed.

It was getting dark and cold fast. Rohan and Sudama left the heavy telescope on the side of the palace steps where they knew no one would bother to move it and ran inside.

It was not long after that the small band of monks arrived. The Maharani hurried to have her son ready to meet them, watching the servants closely as they dressed him in his best suit and jacket, with a bright silk sash and a wreath of flowers. She wasn't sure if he should wear his father's crown, so she put it on him anyway. Rohan looked like he was going to his own wedding, Sudama mused as he watched. "Is this necessary?" Rohan asked.

"I want you to look your best and most stately for the men from the Capital," she replied. "And be on your best behavior—"

"Did you say they're from the Capital?" Sudama asked with sudden curiosity.

"Mother, why do they want to see me?"

The Maharani sighed. She wasn't sure herself, but she knew it was important. If she tried to explain to the boys what she did know, they would only ask more questions she could not answer. "Boxy will explain it to you. He's a Buddhist, and he's come all this way to see how special you are. Now, my little prince, nothing bad will happen to you. Come meet him."

Rohan stepped toward the door to follow her, but turned to look over his shoulder at his foster brother. What was Sudama supposed to do while he was gone?

"I want to come, too," Sudama said. If Rohan was going to meet someone, he had every right to be there with him. Sudama had a feeling about these monks. He did not know what it was or what it meant, but he knew they had something to do with him.

The Maharani did not argue, and led them both quickly to the room where the monks were resting after their flight. They were young men, to the boys' surprise. Sudama expected all holy men would be old, but none of these monks could have been over thirty. Their red-orange robes and shaved heads matched the aura of piety about the men, but their lean bodies and muscular arms implied a connection still to the physical world. The journey had been no discomfort for them. Boxy was the oldest, and even then still considered himself a student. The boys recognized him from his Imperial clothes: he wore a golden silk suit with a royal dragon and a little hat of the latest fashion in the Middle Kingdom. It showed he was important.

The Maharani greeted him and introduced her son, Rohan Chadrapati, then took her seat on her late husband's throne. She ordered Sudama to sit next to her, much to his displeasure. It hurt him to only be able to watch while Rohan was examined. Boxy walked around him seeing that he was healthy—this he could tell just by looking, which made Sudama wonder if the superstition about visible auras was true—and noticing the boy's posture. Definitely a king's. He removed the crown from Rohan's head as it was heavy and created a glare. Then, he looked into Rohan's eyes. Deep into them. There was something exchanged between the two as they were locked in that stare. Sudama wondered what it was, and felt envy. He hated to be left out, and this time he felt he shouldn't.

"Your father passed away recently, didn't he, young master?" Boxy asked gently. "How has his death affected you?"

It was an odd question, Sudama thought. He was surprised when Rohan answered: "I . . . I don't know. It was strange. Before I found out what had happened, I had a horrible feeling, as if someone were holding my heart. Then, suddenly I was freed—like I had died and been reborn. Now that I think about it, I felt—I _feel_ like there is something I have to do, or become. Something important."

"Good," Boxy said. "It is what the others said as well. You are right, young master. Indeed, you will be someone important. You already are.

"Have you heard of the _shitennou_?" he continued. Rohan shook his head. "Perhaps the _lokapala_? Vaguely? There are stories about these noblemen, these heroes that give up the salvation they attained—a rare thing indeed—to help others reach theirs. But they are _real_ people. They will live hundreds of years and lead the people of their kingdoms into a new age. I found two of them already. They are the young Prince's companions. After meeting you," he said, nodding at Rohan, "I know I have found my third. But, young master, you must know it too."

Rohan did not flinch as he heard it. "Yes," he said, and it was true. "I know it."

"Then you will have to have a new name," Boxy said. "As you said, you were reborn in part to realize your destiny. You will be Emperor of the West and your new name will be Nephrite."

Sudama had stood before he realized what he was doing. "Wait," he said, "what about me?" He only realized then that he had sounded ten times more selfish than he had intended.

"You?" The chela fixed him a curious look. "Who are you?"

"Sudama. Of course." Rohan turned to face him. "He's my foster brother and my best friend. It was fate that brought him here in the first place." At this Boxy's eyes lit up. He had been taught not to doubt the four kings. If Nephrite mentioned fate, it must be so. "We do everything together, you see," he said. "Surely he must be one of your kings if I am. He is a prince."

Sudama's heart skipped a beat, as he suspected the Maharani's might have too. She was proud and overwhelmed with the knowledge that her son was a divine being, but she couldn't have suspected that the boy she bought from a foreign merchant could be one too. It made Sudama proud to hear Rohan call him a prince, not just in the past tense but in the present as well. Someone else believed in him.

"Is he?" Boxy said, and motioned for Sudama to stand next to his companion. "Where are you from, young master?"

"Araby, sir," Sudama said. "Far to the West." He bowed his head, though he knew it would have been more proper to look into the chela's eyes. He was uncertain what he might see in them. "I am an orphan. My mother died only months ago. I didn't have any reason to live there afterwards. That was why I came to India. I knew I had to get away, go eastward." Boxy was silent. He didn't know if he would be believed or not, he had become so used to people distrusting him. "You must believe me," he said, his sincere tone laced with desperation. He tilted his head up to look into the chela's face, and their eyes met. The same intense, unwavering gaze that Rohan had been locked in moments before.

It shocked him physically.

Minutes went by as he was unable to break that gaze. The chela's pupils seemed as black holes, no light escaping, but also as mirrors, and he saw himself reflected. Vague truths came to him and feelings he could never describe. Is he doing this, he wondered, or am I?

Then Boxy closed his eyes as though he had felt a slight headache. Yet something had passed between them. What had seemed like minutes had clearly been only seconds, but Sudama felt changed. "I am one of your kings?" he said, and waited for confirmation.

It was a long moment before it came. "It's unfortunate that the fourth King should be born so far away from his home," Boxy said plainly. But his undertone of restraint was lost on the boy. Sudama felt his heart skip a beat, and a warmth rush through his veins to his head at such words. "Your kingdom is the South. Your name will be Zoisite.

"You must use these names from now on," Boxy continued. "This is who you are, and anything else would be a lie. Remember that." He spoke toward the Maharani when he said: "You must start your education immediately. The Empire will appoint a teacher shortly."

"Is that all?" Nephrite asked. "No spells, no magic?"

Boxy shook his head, a small smile appearing on his lips. "All that I need to do I have done. Everything else is up to you, young masters. Now that you know who you are, the rest will follow. I will send the news to the Capital. They will know what else to do with you, when the time comes."

—o—

Nephrite had always dreamed of a grand parade when he was crowned king. He didn't care much for attention—it had a way of making him wish he were invisible—but it would have been quite something. Riding atop an elephant decked in orange and lavender and gold, through the center of the city, surrounded by fine things and fine people, dancers and musicians. The crowd, his people, would love him, singing and throwing flower petals in the air to honor him; and he would toss them rubies and pieces of gold to represent his promise to them, to do honor by them. Beautiful princesses would offer themselves to him. The gods would show their faces and speak with him. The heavens would welcome him, too. He wasn't sure how it would be possible, but he envisioned shooting stars and brilliant colors—much like shows of the Chinese fireworks but on a grander, universal occurrence.

Of course, there was none of that when the monks came. He knew he should not have expected it. The celebration was fine nonetheless. The next day was full excitement as people came to visit the palace to see their new king and give him blessings. Over all was the droning of the monks as they prayed without break until evening. At sunset, the elephants did come out—for a parade through the palace courtyard. Dressed in their battleclothes, they performed for him by torchlight while a troupe danced and sang songs from Hindu stories.

Nephrite and Zoisite feasted that night as if they were at their own weddings, to wonderful music and aromas. They sat on glorious thrones brought by the monks from the Middle Kingdom, and shared a peacock with them. It was important that they ate the bird. It would give them long life. Nephrite had heard the tale enough times to know peacock meat didn't rot. Still, Zoisite had to whisper to him during the meal that it was just a superstition, and that whether they ate the peacock or—dare he suggest—a cow, they would live long lives anyway. Or short ones, he said, in his jokingly fatalistic turn. "You never know." He was beaming that night. Zoisite got what he wanted: to be recognized as the prince he was. Nothing more.

Nephrite, on the other hand, could not help but be disappointed. If he was as special as the chela said, where was the magic, the secrets of the universe revealed? He supposed he would have to find that in himself. And he would. You can do anything when you are a Guardian of Heaven, even magic.

It was during the meal that Nephrite's mother announced she would convert. He was too numb to be outraged. She laughed with the monks, and with Boxy, who were pleasant men and respected her great mind whether she was a man or woman. They told her about their religion, and she agreed to become a Buddhist. She would still rule as she always had, with Nephrite's father or without him, only her faith would be different. It was for her son she did it. He was a bodhisattva. It would not be fitting to not believe in her own son.

So the comfortable life Nephrite knew had come to an end, an unpredictable one just beginning. Zoisite had gone through the transition easily, but he wasn't Zoisite. He didn't know how to take it. There would be no more stories of Rama and Krishna, no more studying just because he wanted to. Even the plainness of the monks made him feel disillusioned. He could already feel the yoke of responsibility. Wasn't this what he always wanted, he asked himself. But when he looked at himself in the mirror, he was still too young to wear it.

III.Nephrite

"Prove the angles opposite the congruent sides of an isosceles triangle are congruent. By definition, segment AC and BC are congruent. So BC and AC must also be congruent . . ."

Zoisite wasn't really listening. It was a simple problem anyway, the one Master Frustum was explaining to the class. Instead he stared at the problem before him, a complicated formula for propulsion, tapping his stylus absently against his lips. Where to start? Beside him Nephrite yawned, and muttered under his breath, "Proofs. God, how I hate proofs."

"Yes, Master Nephrite?" The boys looked up, Nephrite the more startled of the two. "Did you have the next step figured out?" their instructor asked.

"Uh," Nephrite started. "Angles A and B are congruent by the definition of an isosceles triangle, aren't they?"

Zoisite sighed, but hardly enough for his brother to notice. He didn't want to offend, but it was a simple proof. "Angle C is congruent to itself, sir," he said. "Triangle ABC and BAC are congruent because two corresponding sides and the included angle are always congruent. Thus angle A and angle B are congruent, because corresponding parts of a congruent triangle will be."

"Very good, Master Zoisite," was all Frustum said. Zoisite went back to work on his equation, but he felt Nephrite staring at him out of the corner of his eye. He only hoped the look wasn't bitter. He had not meant to make his comrade look the fool.

He was always the last one to leave after the bell rang to end class. The other boys, full of careless energy, rushed out to play. Nephrite waited patiently by the door while the other prince finished what he was doing and gathered his supplies. "I still don't understand these," he mumbled to Zoisite. "They seem so—redundant." At first, Master Frustum had wondered what was wrong with the two—Zoisite the mathematical genius, and Nephrite the dedicated dreamer—that they rejected the follies of their youth. Gradually, he had come to understand how they were special. In addition, he received regular letters from the Capital, to check up on the boys' progress. Oh, he knew about them, all right. All the boys knew about them, and that only contributed to their alienation.

"The Capital sent me another notice," Frustum said before the two could leave that afternoon.

"What does it say?" Zoisite asked.

Their instructor waved the letter. "Apparently the Prince wants you two to start your etiquette training."

"Etiquette?" Nephrite said with a pained expression, raising an eyebrow.

"But that doesn't mean you can get out of geometry tutoring," Zoisite teased, and received an elbow in his side.

Master Frustum shook his head at them. "No, I still expect you to come to class. But this is special. The Capital is sending their finest expert on etiquette here to instruct the young royalty of the area. She is Indian, but hasn't been home for quite a while. But she has a palace outside the city, and that's where you two are expected to meet for your tutorial. Four days a week."

The two boys groaned in resignation.

—o—

Countess Shakoukai was a model of grace. With every step and gesture she demonstrated the proper behavior, a balance of pride and modesty that had taken years to culture, like the giant pearls she wore in her jewelry. She wore her long hair above her head in a Chinese style, but retained the tattooed dot of her third eye on her brow. Her posture was like a statue's, straight and proud, her chin tilted upwards. And she wore a peculiar style of dress, not a sari but still giving her an aura of richness and composure. When she greeted the two young men, it was with utmost ladylike respect. A curtsey, some well-placed, flowery words of introduction and welcome, and she gave them a tour of her institute. Like any social woman she liked gossip and talking about her travels; but unlike most of her caste Nephrite and Zoisite had met before, she was a clever woman and often called attention to the method of her banter. She made sure to ask them about themselves, and while she made clear the science of conversation she showed a genuine interest in them—unlike most boys their age who found them tiresome and called them freaks behind their backs. And she introduced them to her other students, the young men and ladies of noble Hindu and Jainist households—most of whom were more than eager to rub in their standing in society. Nephrite and Zoisite kept their extraordinary identity a secret between themselves and the countess.

"It is always important for guest and host to speak correctly and accordingly," Countess Shakoukai explained. "They have a delicate relationship to maintain for the duration of any party or gathering." This was addressed to the boys one day as they stood awkwardly in the tuxedos they had been fitted with. Zoisite held himself with all the modesty of a peacock in his suit, but Nephrite only found it stuffy and restricting.

"You will learn how to be perfect gentlemen," she continued. "How to introduce yourself to ladies—and to other gentlemen as well—without offending them. How to recover from an insult—and how to give one properly. If you don't speak with a cool head, anything you say may be used against you. Gestures are important. Body language. Everything from how to properly give a present to a young lady and other such matters of flirting and courtship, to . . . well, truly important matters. Speaking with dignitaries, royalty and the difficult to please. Above all, never making yourself look like an idiot!

"First impressions are perhaps the most important in establishing alliances or enemies. Keep in mind what to say and when to say it so as not to make a mockery of your guest. Speak modestly but without any degradation to your person. Above all, exude grace." She bowed slightly and put out her hand. "'Good day. I don't believe we've met. I am Countess Shakoukai. And you? Pleased to meet you.' Again, introducing a friend." She put one hand to her breast modestly. "Put yourself first. 'Good evening, sir or madam. I am Countess Shakoukai, and this is my friend—who shall remain nameless for the sake of the example. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.' Now you try. Master Nephrite?"

He stepped forward and bowed before the countess, who nodded for him to continue. "Good day, Countess. Let me introduce myself: My name is Nephrite. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Good," she said. "But never assume one's social standing. Chances are good the next woman you introduce yourself to will not be a countess." She smiled pleasantly. "Now, try again. But this time, I want you to ask for my name. Bow shortly, and make sure your hand follows your words. Start at your chest, then bring it gracefully outward toward me when you ask me for my name— That's it."

The other boys shuffled impatiently. "Now, we shall move on to the handshake, which is very important in the Moon Kingdom and it's planetary alliances. Master Zoisite, if you would be so kind as to demonstrate?"

Without the slightest hesitation, the fair boy stepped forward to join Nephrite. He turned toward Shakoukai and introduced himself, then held out his hand—with a graceful half-circular motion—for hers. To his surprise she did not take it but shook her head.

"Now, Master Zoisite, are you a young gentleman or a young lady?" The boys laughed, and Zoisite felt the blood rush to his face at her words. What had he done wrong to be mocked? Shakoukai turned to his classmates. "It is indeed proper for a young woman to hold her hand outstretched in such a manner," she said, "but gentlemen remove their gloves first." And she took his wrist to make him remember, and he looked down at his gloved palm. "Right," she said then and clapped her hands. "Shall we move on? Being polite and making light conversation."

The boys were introduced to a group of beautiful young women who had already been trained by Shakoukai. Some of the young men joked they would be part of the sex education, but Nephrite and Zoisite just rolled their eyes at such juvenile speculation. The graduate ladies were to be their dance partners. The countess introduced the young men to a style she referred to as Ballroom. She tried her best to describe the party environment of the Moon Kingdom, but most of the boys could not fathom it. Zoisite could only because he had memorized Nephrite's books on the Moon and extraterrestrial kingdoms. He took it up without much difficulty. He stepped with grace and was quick to learn the steps his partner showed him while the countess kept a steady beat of "one-two-three, one-two-three" and encouraged her students.

"Oh, dear," she said at one point and sighed. "This will not do." She stopped Nephrite and his partner while the other boys seemed not to notice. Zoisite did, however, and listened close when Shakoukai said, "You're far to stiff, Nephrite. Loosen your joints, while still maintaining your posture. This is not geometry. If you concentrate _too_ much your body won't flow properly with the time." She patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Try practicing with your _talwaar_. It will teach you patience and confidence."

They did not practice with the heavy swords during class, however. Countess Shakoukai found fencing to be a much more refined war-sport, and she made it a requirement for both her male and female students. The clash of the flimsy swords rang beautifully in Zoisite's ears, and surely just as wonderfully in Nephrite's. When they were paired against each other, their classmates would stop to watch with breaths held in anticipation. No one else could move as quick or clean as the two who would be emperors. They were two white faceless bodies lunging and parrying too passionately and too rapidly for the other students to keep track of who was who. It could go on for several minutes, violently even, so that one had to call a tie to get them to rest. Yet when the masks came off, the boys would be beaming, hardly breaking a sweat, and shake hands so ardently it was obvious to anyone how deeply they honored their brotherhood.

Table manners proved to be the most frustrating for most of the students, both the boys and girls. And Shakoukai insisted they eat together; that was how things were done in the Moon Kingdom, where all people are equal regardless of their blood or sex. To the young kings, the manners and usage of various utensils came naturally. It was only logical what each spoon and fork was used for. Quietly they laughed at the other boys and girls, whose eyes boggled at the array. It was as though someone had suddenly set surgical instruments before them. And Zoisite and Nephrite had run out of fingers counting the times the countess reminded the young men and women to sit up straight, or to act like adults at the table. It was the slurping of soup that drove her nearly out of her mind. "Soup should be seen, not heard," she said again and again.

"But, ma'am," one cocksure boy said, "my cousin told me it's only proper to slurp your soup in the Middle Kingdom, and he's been there."

"I don't care what your cousin told you," she would retort. Zoisite would smile sideways at Nephrite and eat in silence. "In the Moon Kingdom, we eat our soup—and the rest of our meals, for that matter—in peaceful silence. One must hear the conversation so one may reply appropriately. The sound of chomping is for animals and ordinary people. In the Moon Kingdom, grace is next to godliness.

"What manners valued by the Middle Kingdom or your own villages are no longer important. Soon they will be outdated. What I am trying to teach you is the new way, adapted from the classical code of etiquette and behavioral conduct by the Moon Kingdom, which has perfected it. And you will learn to eat soup quietly, dance and converse correctly, wear the proper dress and behave accordingly if it takes you time and time again to get it right. For the Moon Kingdom's way will one day be the only way."

—o—

"All right. Shoot for the stars!"

The match caught fire and hissed. Quickly Nephrite put the flame to the fuse. The rocket nose stared up at both of them—ready—so he and Zoisite stood and made a dash for the marble wall they had chosen for their shield. Panting, Nephrite asked: "Are you sure about the trajectory?"

"What?" Zoisite said, his fingers in his ears.

"I said, are you sure about the trajectory!" Nephrite repeated. He shot a glance back at the launch site.

Zoisite nodded. "Sure I'm sure! I calculated the whole thing a dozen times!"

There was a snap-bang, and a deafening hiss that made them both duck in instinct. The model rocket took off for the sun, hundreds of feet toward its zenith. They stood to watch it in utter fascination, shielding their blinking eyes from the blinding sunlight. Zoisite was bursting with pride. But as he watched the rocket take an unexpected arc toward the temple his smile faded. "Oh no," he shouted. But he was less concerned for the people around them than for himself. "That can't be right! I worked everything—"

Without warning the rocket exploded bright blue-green in midair. The bang drew the monks from their meditations into the square, and they shouted to each other and looked around in sudden panic. Little shards of rocket stuff came down like blackened snowflakes on the floor, and they put their hands on their hips and shook their heads, cursing the boys. Zoisite looked over to see Nephrite beaming. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

The dark-haired boy grinned at him, the scoundrel. The mathematical computations may have boggled Nephrite's mind, but he knew something about chemicals. Zoisite shook his head. Nephrite and his kamikaze rocket. He couldn't be angry even though they had spent days building what was now a thousand pieces on the marble tiles. "Well, we got it up," Zoisite said with a chuckle.

"Are you kidding?" Nephrite said, still short of breath. "It flew! It was beautiful."

Zoisite watched his face. Nephrite wore his passion on his sleeve. He was radiating it now. The fair boy turned back to the remnants of their destruction. The monks had given up and gone back to their duties. "It _was_ incredible," Zoisite said, remembering not so much the arc as the explosion, and the miniature meteor shower, the looks on the monks' faces.

Then Nephrite grabbed his arm. "Let's go make another one."

—o—

In the spring when Zoisite was fifteen and Nephrite only half a year older, the jungles outside Nagpur beckoned.

There was an old temple in the forest overgrown with vines and banyan offshoots—a shrine, really, as there were hundreds of neglected ones along once-traveled pilgrim roads. The two called it their palace regardless. The walls on one side had come down, leaving gray marble pillars and a cracked stone floor the boys thought of as their courtyard. They made it their own in their hearts, and officially became blood brothers under that green canopy.

No one else seemed aware of the place. The solitude was blissful.

They brought books there to keep up with their studies where the canopy would keep them cool on the hottest days, and enough food so they could stay out until dark. They knew better than to stay after the sun started to fall. The dark was alluring, but death was not, and even the daggers they made sure to bring would not stop a hungry tiger or a striking cobra.

They left the Imperial uniforms—fancy suits sent from the Capital—behind whenever possible, favoring something simpler and much less formal. When they reached their secret palace, Nephrite stripped off everything but his trousers, free as a monkey, and made Zoisite laugh when he attempted to get them mangoes or imitate the noisier birds he loved to watch. He seemed content among the natural things. Zoisite didn't mind the wilderness, but unlike his foster brother preferred to keep his jacket on and his hair back; and would rather have settled down quietly with some text, even when Nephrite took out his flute or—on the rare occasion—his _talwaar_ for practice.

He swung the heavy, curved blade back and forth with a calculated elegance while Zoisite read to him from a book of the Middle Kingdom's history the Capital required them to study. "Shih Huang Ti, first emperor of the Chin dynasty, built the Great Wall and united the North and the Yangtze for the first time. That was one thousand two hundred and twenty-two years ago. Lord Shang, his official and scholar of Legality, wrote, 'The things which people desire are innumerable, but that from which they benefit is one and the same. Unless people are made one, there is no way to make them attain their desire. Therefore they are unified and their strength is consolidated.'" Zoisite paused to ponder his words, then continued: "The emperor was buried in a great tomb, and his son Li Su inherited the throne. But Han Kao-tsu overthrew him, one thousand two hundred years ago."

"This is boring," Nephrite said, jabbing at an invisible enemy behind him.

Zoisite looked up from the book. "I don't think so."

"We should be studying more mythology. Rama and Siddhartha, Gilgamesh, Herakles. What else. . . ?"

"But those are just stories," Zoisite replied, closing the book. "None of that really happened."

Nephrite put down the sword. "How do you know that?" he said. "I mean, who's to say it never happened?" Zoisite shrugged, and stood and stretched his arms. "Right. And even if they are just stories, you must admit they're more interesting than some stuffy old politicians."

"Perhaps." Zoisite climbed up onto the broken wall, balancing himself with arms outstretched as he said: "But, tell me, Nephrite, what does Rama tell you about governing a kingdom?"

"Well, for one, how easy it is to leave it all for love."

"Would you do that?"

"I don't know," Nephrite said. "I would have to be in love first, I think."

Zoisite laughed. He wound his hair, which he had decided to grow out like Nephrite's, in a loose topknot and wandered the upper floor, casting a quick glance at his foster brother. "That's good. And Sun Wu-Kong?"

Nephrite shrugged. "Where to start? There's hubris, for one."

"Now, how about Gilgamesh?"

"Not to leave so you can go find immortality potions," Nephrite said. "That beautiful goddesses are very jealous by nature. And how binding real friendship is." Nephrite looked around, but Zoisite had disappeared. "Where did you go?" he shouted.

"Right here!"

He turned as Zoisite hopped down from a marble ledge, a thick garland of white flowers around his neck and feathers stuck into his hair. He hid behind a pillar as Nephrite asked: "Now who are you supposed to be?"

"Don't you recognize me?" Zoisite peered at him from behind the pillar, clinging to it melodramatically, and—both would be loath to admit—quite seductively. "I'm Sudama, of course," he said beaming, "the frightened boy from the jungle."

"The monks said we weren't supposed to use those names anymore," Nephrite said, backing up a step.

Zoisite rolled his eyes. "You're too superstitious, Nephrite," he chided. He took a menacing step forward. "You wanted me to loosen up, didn't you?" Suddenly he fell to his knees and clasped his hands, but couldn't keep a serious face. "Please, play along, m'lord. You must save me from the tiger! I hear him growling in the bushes and am scared he might try to eat me!"

"And just where is this tiger?" Nephrite challenged. A reluctant grin lifted one side of his mouth.

"Um . . ." Zoisite ran back to his own practice sword. "Here!" he said, and pointed the dulled tip at his comrade in en garde stance. "I am your tiger."

Nephrite raised an eyebrow. "You?"

"Had you fooled, didn't I?"

Nephrite shook his head. "First of all, Little Brother, a proper tiger doesn't wear feathers in his hair." He walked up to Zoisite and tousled his hair. Zoisite shook his head wildly, loosening the feathers. "Second," Nephrite continued, "the tiger must growl and put up a fight before I can kill him."

"In that case, the tiger will kill you first." And Zoisite lunged forward with his blade, clashing harmlessly with Nephrite's to the side.

He pushed his comrade toward the center of the courtyard, where they circled each other slowly, calculating each other's next move in mirrored steps. "'Tiger, tiger, burning bright,'" Nephrite recited while he caught his comrade's wild eyes, "'in the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry.'"

Zoisite grinned. "Your memory is good, sir, but you're only wasting your breath." He posed threateningly. "Stop talking nonsense and fight, lest you be mistaken for a coward!"

"All right, then!" Nephrite yelled laughing with excitement, and lunged. Zoisite met his sword and pushed him back, then deflected his next blow. While Nephrite swung his sword back, his comrade saw an opening and took a shot, knowing full well that Nephrite would be in time to parry. It was what he wanted. It was their game.

Or, rather—Zoisite remembered—_he_ was the game. He indulged Nephrite with a sinister growl, though nearly breathless from excitement and weighing the heavy sword. Their swords clashed among their cries of triumph and defiance, until Nephrite said abruptly: "Watch your feet!"

Zoisite looked down, then caught himself before he could trip on a crack. But it was too late. Nephrite won, with the rounded tip of his talwaar hovering just centimeters from his comrade's breastbone. "Ha!" the darker boy huffed. "The fool is fooled by his own tricks."

"That isn't fair," Zoisite said through his grin. "I could have really tripped and broken something."

Nephrite was grinning as well, his chest rising and falling painfully as he tried to catch his breath from the primal excitement of the chase. "Now the tiger dies."

"You'll have to catch me first!" Zoisite dared him, and took off. Throwing down his sword, Nephrite followed in hot pursuit, into the more overgrown parts of the ruins. He caught up with the fair boy and grabbed him around the middle, nearly throwing them both off balance. But Zoisite managed to free himself. Nephrite caught his wrist, and they both started laughing uncontrollably when he tried to pick Zoisite up. They wound up on the cracked floor, rolling over each other in mock struggle on the moss, hardly noticing as they were bruised by the banyan roots that wound through the old marble tiles.

They were brothers in spirit, and best friends in any case. In the wild solitude of their jungle palace they didn't have to think about learning and politics and acting like adults, since they'd had to do that their whole lives. Even though it had been harmless play, Zoisite felt like the tiger and the frightened boy at the same time struggling with Nephrite on the floor. Of course, it was a more joyful feeling than one with which either of those two characters would possess him, thrilling to say the least, but he couldn't describe it. If he had ever felt it before, it was before he could remember.

Nephrite stopped struggling, and then so did he, breathing heavily. His dark-haired companion sat on his hands and knees above him. He didn't bother pinning him down like before. He was staring, his deep brown eyes never once moving from Zoisite's. The smile had gone from his lips.

Zoisite didn't know whether to like it, that look in his eyes. He didn't know how to react either, just stared back. His flower garland had been crushed and tattered, and his jacket lay open over one breast. Nephrite's nervous gaze dropped to it. Tentatively he slid his hand under the jacket, and Zoisite watched, feeling almost detached. He held his breath at the touch as if it were a discovery for both of them. Looking up, he saw Nephrite's lips were mere inches away. He reached for them with his fingers, his eyes never wavering from their goal. Nephrite's eyes dropped when he touched him, and Zoisite felt his warm breath on his hands. If he leaned up on his elbow, he could meet those lips with his own.

Nephrite started. He pushed himself away from Zoisite rather suddenly, that the younger boy had to ask, startled, "What's wrong?"

"I thought I saw a scratch," Nephrite said defensively. "That's all!"

—o—

Sirius lent its heat to the sun's and the monsoons came late that year. The nights in Nagpur had been hot and dry, and when the rains did decide to start—covering the sunset in clouds like an old linen veil—the humidity only made it harder to get to sleep. Zoisite couldn't. He used to creep into Nephrite's room when they were younger, when everyone else was asleep, and sit and play games or talk quietly with him until neither could keep his eyes open any longer. After staring at the ceiling for what very well could have been hours, Zoisite finally slid out of his bed and went quietly to the door of Nephrite's room. He went in without knocking—that would wake up the Maharani, and then the secrecy would be lost—closed the door, and stopped at the edge of the bed. "You awake?" he whispered.

Nephrite moaned and rolled over to face him. "I had _just_ drifted off," he said. He rubbed his eyes. "What do you want?"

"It's too hot. I couldn't get to sleep." Zoisite sat down on the edge of the bed. He hated to wake Nephrite, but then again it wasn't fair that one of them would get to sleep and not the other.

Nephrite sat up, and smiled at him in his grogginess. "Well, you won't get any cooler wearing that," he said, fingering the loose shirt the younger boy always wore to bed. Nephrite only wore his on the coldest nights. "Why don't you take it off." Zoisite pulled the shirt over his head as his comrade continued: "So what do you want to do, now that I'm wide awake, thanks to you?"

Zoisite thought about that as he let his shirt fall on the floor. There was sarcasm in Nephrite's tone, but it wasn't cruel: he was holding something back. A couple of summers ago Nephrite would offer to go out on the porch and look at the planets and galaxies through their telescope. Other times Nephrite would tell him stories about the Hindu gods, and laugh about the tales Zoisite would try his best to describe from the Qur'an. He never was as good a storyteller, but Nephrite had a way of raising his spirits, yawning: "You've got me interested anyway. I'd like to read this Qur'an some time." But that was then. Things were different between them now, their closeness tainted by tension. "I don't know," Zoisite said. He hesitated. "Can I come in with you?"

Nephrite was still. "We can talk," Zoisite tried innocently. But he was stricken with a strange, even thrilling nervousness in his stomach as he crawled under the covers and lay still on his back beside his friend. Their bare shoulders touched. Neither talked.

The silence was unbearably weighty. Zoisite turned his head. With a sigh he pushed himself up on an elbow. Nephrite looked up at him, his tired eyes questioning silently. The light was soft on his face, the shine on his brow and cheekbones and the moisture in his brown eyes. Zoisite looked down at his hand beside his brother: he'd never noticed the great difference in the fairness of his skin and Nephrite's dark curls. His eyes focused again on the Indian boy's face, and then he bent to kiss his lips. When he pulled away, there was moisture there too.

"What was that for?" Nephrite asked, again with the cold tone he had carried since that day in the forest.

It hurt Zoisite. "I just felt like doing it," he muttered.

"I don't like other boys."

"Neither do I." It was true, Zoisite told himself: as far as he knew he only liked Nephrite. He realized that now. Maybe even loved him—as something other than his closest friend. He wasn't sure. But he remembered Master Frustum telling them there was one sure way to prove a hypothesis. "It's just an experiment," he whispered and kissed Nephrite again.

After their lips parted, Nephrite said nothing. Whether it was a good sign or bad, Zoisite only knew that he wanted more. It took that touch to realize there was something missing inside of him, and the kisses could fill at least part of the void. It felt so good. "Aren't you going to kiss me back?" he whispered, begging. He was glad, then, when Nephrite put his hand on his neck and pulled him down for another sweet osculation.

And they kissed again and again. It was an experiment, discovering what felt good and what felt better. No Kama Sutra or nonsense Moon Kingdom bedroom etiquette could show them how to do it right; they just did it. Trial and error. When they pulled away, Nephrite stared, and Zoisite threw away his nervousness for curiosity and traced the lines of his stomach. They kissed again, trying different ways, involving their tongues. It was heaven. Zoisite wrapped his arms around his brother and ran fingers through his dark hair and along his face. Meanwhile he felt Nephrite's hands move down his spine to the waistband of his breeches. He sighed against Nephrite's warm lips, breathing in and out from them. That touch aroused him in a way nothing had before, frightening while at the same time he could not bear for the pleasure to stop. He put his leg over Nephrite's hips, pulling their bodies closer together. The double layer of cotton between them was so achingly obstructive. With a gasp Zoisite caught himself unconsciously adding to their friction. However, he could not stop, nor did he want to. He tipped his head back, and had to bite back the sounds that threatened to come out when Nephrite's lips moved to his throat.

They were finished all too soon, and left wondering if they had just made love, if it counted. In any case, they were sweatier than before simply lying in separate beds. Yet sleep overtook them quickly. Closing his eyes, his limbs entangled with his brother's, Zoisite promised him in his mind that they would try something even better next time.

IV.Division

The big, ugly monkey stared at him from his perch on the branch where he was eating a crab apple. The look he gave anyone who watched him was one of disgust, for surely they knew that meals were sacred matters. The younger monkey didn't seem to care in the least, however, for he leapt onto the branch, yelled at the ugly one and tried feebly to steal his apple. Even slaps from the ugly one could not keep the little monkey away, and only resolved his decision to get the apple. He snatched it and sprang away, chittering in victory. But the bigger monkey ran after him like a madman, baring his teeth, and grabbed him. They fought for a while, the miserly little animals, until a bop on the head sent the little one limping away, gazing longingly after the apple, now in his enemy's mouth.

"Stupid creatures," Zoisite sighed and leaned against the bars of the cage. When they fought it was over the pettiest things—like people. They were illogical and stupid, but exciting things to watch. The little monkey spotted him and ran over enthusiastically, grabbing his wool jacket through the bars and feeling the material for any bulges that might be food. Zoisite laughed.

"This is what he wants," Nephrite said beside him, and produced a pink crab apple from his pocket. "Isn't it?" he asked the monkey, who left Zoisite and followed the treat hungrily with his eyes. Nephrite held the apple out, and the creature snatched it from him. Then he hung from the branch nearest them with one arm, watching his false benefactor as he bit into the juicy flesh.

Zoisite scowled back at him and said to Nephrite, "Are you sure you should be feeding them?"

"Why not? It makes them happy."

Zoisite opened his mouth for a retort but the sound of pounding hooves interrupted his thoughts. Two dark figures in light armor, wearing simple pointed Imperial helmets rode up, one tall and muscular and clearly in his prime. The other was no older than Zoisite and certainly no taller. Yet by the air he commanded they could tell he was no less than a prince. "I beat you again, Master Kite," he was saying as he dismounted and pulled off his helmet, shaking his head vigorously. He ran a gloved hand through his short black hair, and his equally dark eyes sparkled with the excitement of competition. "How will I ever be the world's best warrior if you keep letting me win?"

"_Let_ you win, young master? Your horse clearly outran mine."

"Surely you jest!" The dark-haired youth chuckled, and his eye turned to the two princes. "I see you've found the monkeys. How do you like them?"

"They're filthy and they fight too much," Zoisite said. "Very entertaining."

"That's because they're hungry and have nowhere to go," Nephrite told him. "If they weren't caged up like that, they wouldn't have to fight. It's a shame."

"It's a shame man has to keep any wild thing locked up," the newcomer said, and his smile was bright and honest. "But as Jadeite would say, that's the price of art. Wouldn't he, Master Kite?" He put two of his fingers between the bars and the little monkey grabbed them, curious to see if they too were something to eat. Then the boy turned to them. "And you must be Zoisite and Nephrite. My officers have told me all about you. But I'm sorry I don't know which one is which!"

The boys exchanged glances before Nephrite said, "I'm Nephrite. He's Zoisite."

"Of course. I should have guessed."

"Are you Prince Endymion?"

The dark-haired boy nodded enthusiastically at the disbelief in the question. "Yes," he said. "Endymion, Prince of the Earth. The Imperial Guardian of Heaven, and all that. Do I fall short of your expectations?" He shook his head at his own words. "I keep forgetting what it's like for people to meet an emperor. See, I get the same feeling being introduced to my own comrades, because I know, as Boxy told me, you are no less than bodhisattva. It puts me in my place. Yet I have to remind myself we are equals.

"Well, then," he continued, "let us shake hands like gentlemen." And he removed his riding glove from his right hand and extended it, taking both Zoisite's and Nephrite's firmly.

The servants came running to see to the Prince and lead the horses back to the stables. Then the four walked through the menagerie toward the summer palace, which was mostly abandoned in the fall. The first frost left over from morning crunched beneath their feet. Zoisite remembered the Indian boy making an awful fuss about the cold floors when they woke in their room. "Master Kite trained me in the martial arts," the Prince said meanwhile. "Different styles of hand to hand combat and sword fighting and—what was that other one? Tai chi, I think. Or something like that. Anyhow, he taught me how to use my body's energy in combat."

"Like a magician?" Nephrite asked, and Zoisite rolled his eyes.

While Endymion thought about that, Kite answered for him. "It's not so much magic as it is spirit and energy. Say you have an opponent who is trying to push you down. You can learn to use your internal energy in such a way that the opponent's own force will end up pushing him away."

"Have you had much experience with swords?" Endymion asked them.

"Fencing," Nephrite said. "And the talwaar."

"We're very good," Zoisite added.

Endymion smiled as they reached the building. "Boxy will be waiting for us," he said. "I suppose you must have been told by now, Nephrite and Zoisite, why you are here."

"I haven't gotten around to telling them."

Zoisite turned to see the monk Boxy. He wore the red robes of his religion, which seemed so ordinary in comparison with their first meeting. Endymion greeted him warmly. It was apparent simply from the smiles on their faces that the two had known each other for a long time. In fact, for the Prince's entire life, Zoisite reminded himself, and suddenly had a much greater respect for the man. They seemed to regard each other not only as teacher and student, but in a way as father and son.

"Can I tell them?" the Prince asked the chela, eyes bright. "It's so exciting to finally meet you two. I never use this place myself. It's for the Buddhists. But it's too cold here this time of the year, which is why it's so empty. You two are so used to how things are in India. I didn't know it would be so cold already, but I wanted a neutral place for us to meet."

"And to pass Master Kite on to his new students," Boxy reminded him.

"Of course." The young prince blushed. "I guess I've been rambling on again."

"They need to catch up on that part of their education," said the chela. "Though I would much rather have them taught the value of _ahimsa_, I suppose it is necessary for them to learn the arts of strategy and warfare."

"But nonviolence _does_ have its place, sir," Endymion muttered.

The monk bowed then to the Prince. Zoisite noticed how he, a student of experience, honored the young prince's words so. It made him wonder at this strange boy, who was no more divine than he or Nephrite—at least by his own words. And in his admiration and curiosity, he caught himself weighing the Prince against Nephrite.

"Right," Boxy said, snapping Zoisite out of his thoughts. "Let them get started, young master. But first, lunch."

—o—

"What are you doing out here all alone?"

Lying in the grass that was heavy with the smell of Indian summers just beginning, he looked up at Nephrite as he sat down beside him. "I needed some fresh air. And some room to think."

"Oh," said Nephrite.

"And you?"

"I'm probably intruding."

"Not at all. I could use some company. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"Oh, about things. How our lives are turning out. It all seems so—"

"Complicated?"

"Exactly. Endymion wants to separate us."

"What for? Did we do something wrong?"

"No, it's not like that." Zoisite twirled a blade of grass between his fingers absently, tying it into little knots. "He's going to give me my own kingdom. Says it's about time. It seems I'll be moving east again, Nephrite."

There was a slight hitch in his voice. "How far?"

"Farther than Bengal, I suppose. You'll have your own kingdom too—I mean, outside Nagpur. He has a point. You're too old to remain in your mother's kingdom. But don't think about it too much right now."

"How soon will this happen?"

"I don't know. Soon. I said not to worry about it. Look, the stars are coming out."

"Are they?"

"Yeah. Lie down. Then you can see them better. There's no moon tonight."

"I know. Everything is so clear. Look, there's Vega, and Altair and Deneb— Your Arabic names sound so nice."

"I didn't come up with them. Is that Mars?"

"No, Antares—"

"Ah—"

"Easy mistake. Mars is over there. And Mercury on the horizon. What's so appealing about that one anyway?"

"What's so appealing about Jupiter, Nephrite? I just like it. It's, well—elusive."

Nephrite's sigh could easily be taken as a laugh. "By that dreamy tone of your voice, I'd say there was more to it than that, Zoisite. And you say you're not a religious person."

"Indeed I am not. Now, Jupiter. It's an easy one to find in the sky I suppose."

"Like God. It's comforting. If God can be seen, He must want us to see Him. Jupiter wants us to see her."

"Jupiter is the bringer of light, as God must be. But God is in everything, Nephrite. At least, if God did exist, that would be how. In the world around us, not as some pinprick of light too far away to touch, too far away to hear our prayers."

"How do you know it's too far?"

"Only a couple hundred million miles—"

"You sure are quite the expert on God for an atheist, Zoisite."

"That is just what I believe—if I did believe."

"Why don't you?"

"Because I've been through enough to know that we're all alone on this planet. Or any other, for that matter. If God did exist—"

"You think He wouldn't allow bad things to happen? That's the oldest excuse. What about Nature? Do you not believe in the magic of Nature either?"

"Nature is Nature. Science can explain it. What is magic anyway?"

"And Fate? You spoke of it yourself too many times."

"Age-old superstitions that are ground into our heads from birth. I believe in controlling my own destiny. If something happens, it's because I made it happen."

"Serious?"

Zoisite hesitated. "Of course. I'm not saying there's no such thing as coincidence. And I'm not saying things don't happen for a reason. I'm just saying hindsight is twenty-twenty. What seems like Fate is simply the outcome of a certain turn of events."

"I guess that's where we'll have to agree to disagree."

"I still think things turn out for the best. Eventually. I don't suppose I could qualify as a pessimist. Why should we have to agree to that, Nephrite?" He turned to face his foster brother, leaning on one elbow.

"It's obvious. You'll never believe in Fate and magic and other things your science can't explain. I always will."

Inside, Zoisite was full of admiration for his conviction. He wanted to reach over and brush the curls out of Nephrite's eyes, and show him some of the tenderness that had dwindled in the past year. However, he replied sarcastically: "Is that why you spend so much time worrying about what the stars tell you about the future?"

Wounded, Nephrite glared. "It's very important, Zoisite. You make it sound so trivial."

"The stars are millions and billions of miles away. What effect can they possibly have on our lives?"

"I don't have your ease with calculations and formulas, you know. And of course the positions of the stars affect our lives. From the day we are born."

"There you go with Fate again—"

"Whole civilizations have risen and fallen based on the sky. Don't be so harsh."

"But those patterns they make, that's just how the sky looks from here. Why, I bet if you were to go to your precious Jupiter, you wouldn't be able to tell Aries from Andromeda. It is plain old superstition."

"It is not. It _is_ all about how the positions of the stars relate to a planet. Their waves reach us and penetrate us at all different angles. You can't say energy only affects its source, can you? There is something to it besides 'plain old superstition,' even if no one can explain it in functions and numerical values. There are many things that can't be explained with theories, but they are no less real. Can't you understand?"

"No. I'm sorry but I can't."

"Can't or don't want to? What did your God ever do that you should denounce Him?"

The question took Zoisite aback. "He cursed me." He stood, avoiding Nephrite's eyes as he brushed the grass off the backs of his legs.

"Where are you going?"

"I used to believe in God. Then I became one. Try telling me again why I should believe in something so base and so far from Heaven. It's getting dark, Nephrite."

* * *

End of Part Two


	4. Part Three

Part Three

_When Zoisite was barely seventeen, he was given his own kingdom in Burma. It would seem to most an esteemed position, but he knew better._

__

Meanwhile, Nephrite was appointed the Heavenly Guardian of the West, the regional emperor of the Western Tributary Kingdom, and was charged with the enormous task of uniting the Indian raj. All the little kingdoms wanted to remain little kingdoms, because that was how things had been—as far as they were concerned—since Purusha was divided to form the four rudimentary castes. However, none seemed to mind one way or another that one of their princes—even one officially converted to Buddhism—would represent them in the Middle Kingdom. A regional emperor there had little effect on the economy anyway. He was a figurehead whom, if nothing else, the country could rally behind. And Nephrite was charismatic enough for India.

Zoisite, though, was the last of the emperors to be named. He was a Westerner, and the officials in the Capital who worked under the Prince's name distrusted him for it. It hardly seemed fair, but Zoisite was optimistic. He at least had a court in the Southern region—which Prince Endymion promised he would someday control. And while the Prince's court, and the lunar puppetmasters none of the young men were fully aware of, looked toward India and east toward the Japanese islands, Zoisite could do whatever he wanted as long as it looked good from the outside.

If I said a regional emperor had no effect on the economy, well, that was the case in India—the case in a rigid Hindu society. People there tend to live in the small picture: small kingdoms, small villages with deep roots in the past. Burma was different. Zoisite knew it was important to make connections with the common people and the upper classes in order to succeed. That much he had learned from his schooling in India, while Nephrite had focused on astrology and natural sciences and literature. My master was determined to be a success with the people. There were weaker class restrictions in the Burmese kingdom, and he made interacting with all citizens imperative. Buddhists and Hinduists mingled among each other so much it was difficult to tell where one doctrine ended and another began. Muslims were a growing population, their small groups spreading further east and taking with them a new strain of faith Zoisite supported that emphasized a higher spiritual love. They saw God in everything and loved His creation. The Tantric bands that passed through his court looked for enlightenment too, although their quest dealt in drugs and sex.

_It may seem barbaric to you, Princess, coming from the more civilized Planets, but we Earthlings, to put it bluntly, are proficient at and place high value on what everyone refers to as bedroom politics—alliances made under covers. My master was notorious for it in those years, yet somehow the Middle Kingdom officials managed to overlook the rumors that came their way. He was always a gentleman, after all. But among countless young lords and ladies along the Burmese coast, his name was whispered in the dark like a well-kept secret as they begged him never to forget, and to love him or her best of all._

—o—

Something woke Zoisite early in the morning, long before sunrise was due, asking him to get up. Before he could, however, the head against his shoulder reminded him where he was. He moved the sleeping boy off himself and down onto the bed next to him. He sat up and gently did the same for the young woman who used his legs as a pillow, careful not to wake her, then got out of bed. He straightened his trousers, retied his hair, and pulled on a jacket before leaving the room silently.

Master Kite was waiting for him just down the hall. "It's awfully early, Master Zoisite," he said, with an ironic amount of concern for a man as big as himself.

"I thought I heard someone out here," Zoisite told him. He guessed: "A mail carrier?"

Master Kite handed him two letters, which Zoisite took while he stifled a yawn. "One of the messages came from Nagpur," Kite explained. "Or so it says."

But Zoisite's gasp told the other's scepticism was lost on him. "I bet it's from the Maharani!" he said and tore open the seal like a child into a present, beaming with anticipation. It was indeed from the Maharani. It read:

-  
_My dear Zoisite, Nagpur is beautiful this time of year, but a nostalgic longing prevents me from enjoying it much. I miss you so and wish that the Middle Kingdom gave you the time to come back and visit me. All those years you spent under our roof seem now almost like a dream that has passed too quickly. Was it really only five years? I know you don't see me as your mother, but I do think of you as my son. And now I am without both, for Nephrite appears to have disowned me. He still thinks I have turned my back on him and his father for choosing to follow the path of the Lord Buddha. He does not understand people's hearts as well as the heavens: they are too complicated. He is happy in his kingdom, though; I think he would want you to know that, and would like to hear well of you, even though he never speaks to me of you anymore. The stars have captured his interest lately._

__

I trust you are keeping up with your studies, Zoisite. Master Frustum mentions you every now and then. The people still talk about you. They call you and Nephrite avatars. It fills me with such pride to hear my sons held on the same level as gods. Of course, I already know you to be saints reborn. The Muslims in town talk of you all the time. They are still singing in the square. The quawwali say to me, 'My God, I sang with a prophet!'—that is what they call you—and sometimes we pray together, even though we believe differently.

_Remember that I love you and long to hear from you again. Take good care of yourself and your people, Zoisite. May the Lord Buddha watch over you._  
-

Zoisite smiled to himself, putting down the sudden sadness he felt having not seen the Maharani in many months. He refolded the letter and turned to the muscled man in the doorway as if they had been speaking uninterrupted. "And the other letter, Master Kite, who is it from?"

"The Middle Kingdom, sir. Prince Endymion."

"Endymion! Why didn't you say so sooner?" Zoisite snatched the letter from him. He read it silently to himself. When he was finished he contemplated the letter with an unreadable smile. Then he said, "I wish to practice some hand moves this morning, Master Kite. Then I shall take breakfast with the prince of Thanintharyi and the rani of Manipur; they must be on their way today. Then I'll show you what to do to run my kingdom in my place, which should take no time at all, because you said you did have a palace in the Szechwan provinces when you were younger-"

"That's right . . ." Master Kite crossed his thick arms over his chest. "What did the Prince have to say?"

"He wants me to go to Japan with him," Zoisite said, beaming, "to meet the second of us. Jadeite, he says his name is."

I.Sunrise

Zoisite had never seen so much water, even on his move from Nagpur to the Burmese kingdom. What was a river, or a bay, compared to a wide, open sea? The islands rose majestically out of the surrounding sea, topped by snow-capped volcanoes. As the airship began its descent, and slid into the water with a hiss, it made foamy waves crash over each other in its wake. Not far away in the distance, the port sparkled in the early sun, the other boats and docked airships bobbing lightly with the tide.

They pulled up to dock to bright colors. Everyone in the city had come down to the waterfront for the event, bearing pastel banners in a million colors, with the occasional burst of bright red in the Chinese tradition for luck and happiness. Zoisite peered over the side of the vessel, hardly noticing as it bumped against the dock. The common people danced and sang in unison, great big smiles on their lips and in their eyes, laughing and waving their banners for the Prince on board. Zoisite could tell the high-class attendees from the restraint they showed, women with their fans and painted faces, the men with their tall court hats talking calmly but radiating anticipation. And closest to the ship, surrounded by guards and attendants, a peculiar young man in a dark Chinese jacket. His wavy, light blond hair was short and loose, making him stand out from the sea of slick black coiffures. Zoisite found it intriguing the way his unusually wide eyes sparkled as he shared a joke with his officers. He heard Nephrite say his name, and it sounded distant on the ocean air. He went down with him to the dock to join Prince Endymion.

The blond in the dark jacket had come forward, and Zoisite was surprised to see him embrace the Prince with a warm smile and kind words. He wished he knew what those words were. He was curious to hear the young man's voice.

Then Endymion gestured for the two regional emperors to come forward. "This is Nephrite," he said, putting an arm around the Indian prince's shoulder. "He is in charge of the Western Tributary Kingdom, from the Indus valley to Bengal."

"Well! It is an honor to finally meet you, Master Nephrite," the blond said. Instead of bowing as his attendants did, he took Nephrite's hand firmly in his, with a gusto that reminded Zoisite of the countess Jakoukai. His voice was pleasant, and as bright and humorous as his eyes. "I hope you find everything to your liking in our part of the world. I am called Jadeite, emperor of the Eastern Kingdom. That includes Japan, Korea, and the Ryukyu and Bonin islands." He quickly disregarded Nephrite and turned to look in Zoisite's direction, making Zoisite's heart flutter, but he said to Endymion, "And this is?"

"Zoisite, of Burma," Zoisite said quickly, extending his hand. Jadeite laughed, and Zoisite cringed inwardly for seeming too excited to meet the Japanese prince.

Jadeite smiled pleasantly at him, but his smile was not without a bit of mischief. "Well, well," he said, "_Zo-chan_. . . . Are you Master Nephrite's officer?"

Zoisite started, briefly taken aback. "No," he said slowly, certain that Jadeite had merely guessed wrong but irritated nonetheless. "I am the fourth Heavenly Emperor."

"Oh." Jadeite shrugged. "I'm terribly sorry. I'm sure Endymion told me, I simply must have forgotten!" Zoisite looked over at the Prince, and caught a look of exasperation on the young man's face that had not been there a moment before.

"An easy mistake," Zoisite said with a wave.

"Well, I feel awful about it," Jadeite said, but from his grin he looked just the opposite. He turned back to the Prince. "It looks like the whole town has turned out to see you, Endymion," he said. "Unless you want to make a speech to them, I suggest we all return to my palace. They simply wanted to catch a glimpse of your face. That alone would be a gift to treasure their whole lives. They know how kind the Middle Kingdom is to them and are truly grateful for your wise and benevolent leadership."

The smile returned to the Prince's face and he said, "Thank you, Jadeite."

They arrived at the palace in Kyoto by rickshaw shortly. Zoisite was amazed to see it. He'd never seen a whole palace—stretching over acres and stories high—made of so much wood and paper. Everything in the West was built mostly of stone, even the Forbidden City, of which he had only seen pictures. The roof was tiled and steep, and curved at the corners to the exact degree as the several gates that led up to it. Banners had been hung at some of them with words to honor the visiting Prince.

Jadeite glanced over to see Zoisite's admiring gaze. "What do you think of my palace?" he said leaning close, deliberately startling Zoisite, who had not known he was there.

Nephrite answered for him. "Is it stable?" he asked.

"Of course, it is," Jadeite laughed. "This house has withstood typhoons and earthquakes and scandals you wouldn't imagine. The only thing that's managed to bring it down is fire. It's certainly more pleasing to the eye than those marble monstrosities the Hindus make. Do they ever leave any surface unadorned?"

Nephrite's struggle to keep an impassive face was not lost on the other three.

"Might I remind you," Endymion said, "that the Middle Kingdom's palaces are made of marble, too."

"Right," Jadeite said, "but in comparison, the Chinese style seems almost to float in the clouds. It certainly doesn't resemble a termite nest! We Japanese are proud of our great talent for expressing the imperfect beauty and randomness that exists within Nature. That, among all things, remains true." He beamed.

Endymion smiled with him. He said to Zoisite and Nephrite, "Jadeite is very fond of the philosophy of aesthetics. Everything is art to him, even politics."

Jadeite bowed dramatically at the compliment. When he straightened he said, "Please, all of you, join me in my tea room. I'll have your luggage taken to your rooms, and give you a tour of the grounds later. But first, I want to take the opportunity to get to know my new friends." He flashed the two other emperors a smile, one Zoisite found too wide to be honest. "And we shall have to pick up where we left off afterward, Endymion." He gestured for the three to follow him inside.

"Where _did_ we leave off?" the Prince asked.

"We were discussing that summer _tanka_, you know the one . . ."

Nephrite stopped to watch Jadeite take the Prince's arm like an old friend. He shook his head at them. "What is it, Nephrite?" Zoisite asked.

Nephrite crossed his arms and asked of his friend, "What do you think of Jadeite?"

Zoisite shrugged. "He sounds like a fool," he said.

"I'm glad we agree on something," said Nephrite, and followed the Prince and his yammering officer up the steps. Zoisite joined him, choosing not to add how intriguing he found Emperor Jadeite as well.

—o—

Boxy, who had been visiting a monastery in the hills, arrived early the next morning; and after breakfast the Prince and Nephrite followed him to the palace gardens, discussing religion and philosophy. Nephrite was eager to learn about Zen philosophy, he said, hesitant unless Zoisite thought he was betraying his own faith. Since he had been named a regional emperor his mind had been full of trouble—at least, so it seemed to Zoisite.

He, however, wanted to find Jadeite.

An officer told him Jadeite was practicing in the dojo. And there Zoisite found him, sparring with a partner. He watched for a moment, forgetting the anger in which he had come. The two on the floor circled each other with swords in scabbards, one hand on the hilt. Suddenly, the other man drew; and his sword was so fast, and Jadeite seemed to stumble, so that Zoisite was afraid he might have wounded the blond emperor. But Jadeite's own sword was at his throat like it had been there the whole time. After the clash, they returned their swords to their sheaths and withdrew from each other rather than continue to fight, which Zoisite found odd. The match was over before it even started.

Then Jadeite turned and spotted him. He smiled and, handing the sword to his sparring partner, came forward. "Hello, Zo-chan. Come to practice?"

"I came to talk," Zoisite said.

"Well, we can talk while we spar, _ne_?"

Zoisite scowled. "If you insist."

"Do you know _kenjitsu_?"

Zoisite shook his head, not recognizing the term. He glanced at the array of swords, each one barely curved and slender, and doubtless easier to handle than any talwaar. He had heard it said several times that the Japanese made the best blades, which even the Middle Kingdom court imported. If it had to be swords, though, he wanted a real battle, and the Japanese method of fencing seemed quite removed from what he had been taught. "I don't want to fight with swords," he said. "I'd like to practice my hand moves with you. Master Kite must have trained you as well."

Jadeite smiled. "He did."

"Then shall we see who is the better pupil?" Jadeite nodded, and Zoisite added, "_Then_ we'll talk."

Jadeite snorted and pointed out, "You're not properly dressed for the dojo, Zo-chan."

Zoisite resisted the urge to upbraid Jadeite for calling him that ridiculous, demeaning name. He had called Zoisite that since his arrival, each time with relish, or at very least a wicked look in his eyes. "Does one have time in battle," Zoisite said instead, forcing his voice calm and level, "to worry about dresscode?"

Jadeite smiled, relishing the slight. "All I meant to say," he said, "was that Japanese custom—"

The smile vanished when Zoisite removed his jacket, however, and the other men who watched looked uneasy. Zoisite rolled up his sleeves and went to join his comrade on the floor, not bothering to remove his shoes. "Master Kite taught us the moves from the Middle Kingdom," he said, "but in this new age, everything has been taken and perfected by the Moon Kingdom and given back to us like gifts from God. He tells me the citizens of the Moon, being more civilized than us, choose not to fight one another. But if they must, all the power they ever need is in their hands. Not their clothes."

"Touché," Jadeite said slowly. "So, we should go at it like Moon citizens, _ne_? What is the world coming to? All right. I like your thinking, Zo-chan, but, show me, are your skills as sharp?"

Hearing the nickname he had come to hate, Zoisite came at him, aiming a blow to the side of the face followed by a discreet but powerful jab to the abdomen. Jadeite dodged the first and thwarted the second, immediately pushing his comrade back with a few easy punches Zoisite blocked. They went back and forth, one forcing the other back until it was his turn to defend himself. Zoisite felt the energy in Jadeite's punches, the kind of energy Master Kite had demonstrated. Every time he tried to return a blow the force pushed him back. He tried to concentrate on focusing his own energy, but the pressure of fighting a real opponent was too great. He caught Jadeite trying to pin his arms against his chest so that he might push him over, exactly as Master Kite had done several times to finish a round, except sloppier. He wasn't going to let himself be defeated so easily, and not in front of a crowd. In defiance, he yelled and elbowed Jadeite in the shoulder.

Jadeite winced and stepped back. He rubbed his shoulder and said, "That was impressive, Zo-chan, but also very mean."

"Stop calling me that stupid name!" Zoisite said. "Endymion told me what it means, and I won't stand for your disrespect. I am not so little, and I'm not an elephant!" (For 'zo' when drawn out means elephant.)

Jadeite smiled sweetly. "With a squeal like that?" he said, and Zoisite leaped at him again.

Jadeite was there to block him. But Zoisite felt the anger flow through his arm as his closed fist collided with his comrade's palm. The energy sent Jadeite stumbling backwards, and the spectators gasped in surprise and fear. Zoisite doubted any of them had seen someone thrown by energy like that, unless Jadeite allowed them to. The Japanese emperor stared at his hand, glad for his pride's sake that Zoisite hadn't hit him in a place closer to his center of balance and landed him on his backside. "My mistake," he mumbled to himself with a faint note of awe. "I was seeing the humble pink face of a Siamese elephant, when what really stands before me is the angry red visage of Zocho-ten." The smile on his lips was gently ironic, but the spark in his eyes was nothing short of maniacal. "My apologies, Zoisite, for my rudeness. But I believe, for my sake, you owe me a rematch very soon."

"Apology accepted— Huh?" He started when Jadeite grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the doorway.

"You seem like an interesting person," Jadeite said. "A mind like mine I can respect, even if lacking humor. If you'd like, sneak out with me tonight and I'll introduce you to my friends. How does that sound?" Finding Zoisite at a loss to answer, he added, "Was the name thing all you wanted to talk about?"

"Well—"

"Good," Jadeite said. "Then let's be friends. I'll come and get you tonight."

II.Jadeite

_The one to hold the title of Heavenly Guardian of the Eastern Tributary Kingdom was named Jadeite, for wisdom, integrity and other noble virtues. Yet despite his sophistication, to those who knew him best he was not the embodiment of virtue—at least not when I lived under his rule. To be sure, he was more intelligent than any five of his officers put together, having been trained thoroughly by the old Chinese masters._

_Perhaps it was these times of masked distrust that ruined him. With the Great Change forever changing, and the pressure of responsibility over a nation where power was constantly switching hands, his Japan was between a rock and a hard place. He did his best to hide it from the people. You know how cynical he can be about Humanity, with all its flaws, and the simplistic idealism he spouts with endless pleasure like some old Stoic. I suppose he's always been a paradox; from what Zoisite tells me there must have been warring demons inside him since his birth. We hardly ever talked to each other, Jadeite and I, both being well-enough judges of character to know we would waste our time. He doesn't spread kindness and honesty as generously as sarcasm, and one must earn his respect. My master is privileged enough to receive that kindness. However, as emperor Jadeite dreamed of a world where everyone could be happy in his place in life. That was the one thing he wanted over everything else, and it is a noble thing._

—o—

After the palace lamps were extinguished, they walked through the streets of Kyoto rather than take a rickshaw, for it was better for the mind, according to Jadeite, and it was a clear night. Zoisite absently fingered the ruby pin on his collar as the people around them turned to look their way. Jadeite had insisted on clothing that was appropriate for a man of wealth but definitely _not_ of an emperor. Zoisite was not at all reluctant to leave the stuffy silk jackets behind for a simple dark suit, and the Prince's five-fingered golden dragon would have been a horrible undercover disguise. He only hoped no one would find him gone before he had a chance to return to the palace. The officers here had direct ties to the Middle Kingdom, and who would hesitate to ruin a Westerner's reputation? "Where are we going?" he said looking to Jadeite.

"I want to take you to one of my favorite teahouses," Jadeite said. "You can meet my uncouth friends. Zoisite, you _must_ experience all the wonderful things of my country while I have you here." There was a mischievous curve of his eyebrow as he said 'all'. Zoisite told himself to ignore it.

"Are you taking me there so you can mock me some more in front of them?"

Jadeite chuckled.

"I mean it. I don't want to hear that stupid name anymore."

"I promise," he said, "no more 'Zo-chan.'" But that was all he said.

The place was very formal on the outside. The two were greeted at the entry with formal bows and quiet recognition. Inside was another matter.

A voice called out above the laughter, "Jadeite-sama!"

It was one of the entertainers, the tallest one. She stood out from the rest, even despite her height, dressed in a kimono of ocean waves and smiling beautifully. Her deep blue eyes lit up when Jadeite came in. "I'm so glad you could come, Jadeite-sama," she said.

"Tetis!" Jadeite feigned surprise. "I'm equally glad to see you here, my dear." He was exaggerating how excited he was, as Zoisite had come to understand was his style, but this Tetis let his compliment go to her head. The two men at the table greeted him simply. Zoisite found it odd that they were so frank with their emperor; but he refused to be addressed as a lord among his friends.

"We thought you'd abandoned us," said one of the men at the table, obviously a noble himself by his air and expensive-looking clothes, and only a few years older than Jadeite. "Who's the guest?"

"I brought a new friend with me tonight," Jadeite said, pulling on Zoisite's arm, much to the young man's surprise. "His name is Zoisite, and this is his first time in Japan. He told me he wanted to experience _everything_ Japanese." Zoisite started.

"Well, then, how about a round of drinks?" another man suggested, grinning.

Jadeite nodded, and pulled Zoisite with him to an empty spot at the table. "Sit next to me," he said low so only they could hear. Then he turned to his friends as a girl poured them both tiny cups of warm sake. "So, Hachi, Kyu, what's the topic of discussion today?"

"Hachi needs some advice," the scrawny one named Kyu said. "He has this crush . . ."

The man in question groaned but smiled. "Please don't."

"Nonsense. Jadeite should be informed. Like I said, he has a terrible crush on this local girl."

"Yeah?" Jadeite leaned forward. "What's the problem then?"

"Well, you know he's awfully shy—"

"Yes, _and_," Hachi added, "she's somewhat lower class—but very beautiful."

"Stunning," Kyu added.

Jadeite put up a hand. "How much is 'somewhat'?"

"Well, she's a fishmonger's daughter . . ."

Jadeite sucked in a breath before he could finish, and shook his head dramatically. "Quite a dilemma," he said. "This reminds me of that poem by what's-his-name. A beauty that heaven misplaced falls under the scrutiny of a fool in love with love." At this Hachi blushed and Kyu poked him in the ribs. "A love society would never be able to accept. It can only end in tragedy, I'm afraid, but that's good news for us scholars of the tragic."

"Yes, but what do you think I should do?" Hachi asked.

Jadeite frowned, but he was obviously enjoying himself. "Nothing. Give up."

Tetis leaned over, curious. "But Jadeite-sama always has advice," she said.

"I have no advice for this doomed situation."

"But that's terrible advice, Jadeite-sama! What happened to the helpfulness we've grown so accustomed to?"

"I don't see why you still can't have a fling with her," Kyu said, trying to cheer his friend up. "As long as she doesn't get the wrong idea."

Jadeite shook his head. "Women like her will always get the wrong idea. She'll pine for you forever if you do that. Just look at Tetis." The young woman in question gave him a reproachful glare, but it was only half-serious, and Jadeite pretended not to notice. "And what about yourself? If you're so obsessed with her now, just think how it will be when you sleep with her. No, attachment brings suffering, my friend."

"On the other hand," said one girl, "maybe she won't live up to your expectations." Tetis admonished her callousness, but she shrugged as if to say, That's the truth.

"What about Zoisite-sama?" another girl said. "Maybe he has some advice."

Zoisite started. "Me?" Hachi was watching him intently. He said the first thing that came to his mind. "Of course, the thing to do is— Send her a letter telling her how beautiful she is, and see what happens. Then at least you'll know if she returns your feelings." After it was out, in actually sounded like very good advice to his ears.

The others seemed pleased as well.

"Of course, that's what you should do!" Kyu said. "Write her a letter, you fool, before you go jumping headlong into something you might regret." Jadeite was grinning in a mixture of approval and amusement. When he caught Zoisite's eye, he raised his sake cup, urging him and the others to do the same, to drink to his good idea. Zoisite tipped his cup back and almost choked. It was not at all like he was used to, and had a pleasant burn as it went down his throat.

"Yes," Hachi said, his determination renewed, "I'll write her a letter."

"A romantic poem," Tetis added, stating the obvious. "Ladies love romantic poems!"

"Okay." Hachi thought for a moment. "Does anyone know a good romantic poem?" He looked at Zoisite, thinking if he'd heard good advice once he would hear it again. Zoisite, feeling the alcohol going to his head, was glad when Jadeite opened his mouth.

"Actually," he said, "I have one I made up this morning that I think would be appropriate." He cleared his throat, assuming the pose of a dramatic actor:

"At Suma shore,  
shimmering surface of water  
hiding fatal depths.  
A frog jumps to grasp the moon—  
the sound of ripples remains."

It was apparent he was making it up as he went along. His friends laughed. And when it was over, Kyu said, "That was a stupid poem. How can ripples make a sound, in the ocean of all places? A splash, yes. . . ."

"It doesn't matter," Jadeite said in his own defense. "It's the image it creates."

"I suppose the image is of a frog committing suicide."

"Yes! He would rather drown in the cold beauty of the woman's face than live."

"What bullcrap," Hachi said, and the young emperor chuckled as though he'd been given a compliment. "It reeks of unoriginality. The frog and Suma are incompatible allusions besides. Can you think of nothing besides love-suicides, Jadeite? Zoisite, surely you must have a poem in mind that actually makes sense!"

"Well, if we're on the subject of death and ripples, then, yes, I do know a good one. I can't say it would be appropriate for a love letter, though." He recited, slowly from memory:

"Once a ripple came to land  
In the golden sunset burning—  
Lapped against a maiden's hand,  
By the ford returning.

"Dainty foot and gentle breast—  
Here, across, be glad and rest.  
'Maiden, wait,' the ripple saith  
'Wait awhile, for I am Death!'

"'When my lover calls I haste—  
Dame Disdain was never wedded!'  
Ripple—ripple round her waist,  
Clear the current eddied.

"Foolish heart and foolish hand,  
Little feet that touched no land.  
Far away the ripple sped,  
Ripple—ripple—turning red!"

Zoisite waited for a response. Kyu and Hachi were staring. He dared not look at Jadeite, who had the silence of someone upstaged. Finally, one of the girls wiped the corner of her eye carefully with her sleeve, and said, "That is so sad!"

"No kidding!" Kyu added with a laugh. "I almost had you down for a woman, Zoisite, but now I see we just had to get you started. My, how morbid!" He leaned forward over the table, beaming with curiosity. "Where did you learn it?"

"Nephrite taught me."

"Ugh," Jadeite said, "no wonder. How dry! Do all Western poems lack humor?"

"Don't listen to him," Tetis exclaimed, winking at Zoisite. "He's jealous!"

"Jealous? Of that simple rhyme?"

"I think it's beautiful," Hachi said, fumbling with a piece of paper. "Will you repeat it so I can write it down?"

"Oh, do be sensible," said Kyu. "That was not a poem for a fishmonger's simple-minded daughter. Perhaps," he said with a grin, "she would actually find something of worthiness in Jadeite's _tanka_!"

They laughed, Jadeite loudest of all, and he raised his cup for another toast. Zoisite felt the sake go right through his bloodstream to his fingertips, hardly noticing as Tetis refilled his cup, to intent on what Jadeite had to say next.

Jadeite asked the entertainer girls to give them the latest gossip, and they did, to which Jadeite added his own puns and obscene jokes, making his friends laugh. He and his friends persisted in asking some of the girls to perform for them, and reluctantly they straightened their men's robes and donned court hats and danced, while Tetis played the lute. Before long, though, Jadeite interrupted, saying, "I almost forgot," and gestured to Tetis. Taking a little box from his jacket he told her, "I brought you something special."

The box was wrapped in printed paper and bright ribbon. Instead of handing it to Tetis as it was, he unwrapped it while she watched so he could have the pleasure of presentation. Inside the package was a small, decorative comb of red jade, delicately carved with tiny goldfish. Tetis gasped when she saw it, and the other girls who glanced over voiced their approval. "What a wonderful present!" Tetis exclaimed as she snatched it up.

"I found it on my last trip to the Middle Kingdom," Jadeite said. "Red jade means twice the luck. The old woman who sold it to me said it was an antique. I know how you enjoy such things, Tetis."

"Oh, I do! I love it!" She found a place for the comb in her hair, and gazed into the little mirror that was passed to her. Turning her head from side to side, she sighed her appreciation.

Kyu whistled and said, "I bet it cost a fortune!"

"Oh, hush," said one of the girls, and Tetis added dreamily, "I don't care how much it costs, it's the most beautiful present I've ever gotten."

"Sure, _today_."

After draining his cup again, Jadeite glanced at his comrades with a mischievous smile and suggested a game that called for paper and ink. There was an impatient tone in his voice that struck Zoisite as rude. How he can dismiss her so quickly? he thought. But, looking over at Tetis, the unintentional slight had no effect on her. Or perhaps she was simply used to it. "What game are we playing?" she asked, excited again.

Jadeite grinned. "It's a drinking game," he said, beaming. Kyu and Hachi groaned and chuckled, and Zoisite helplessly joined them, feeling light-headed from what he'd already drunk. Not knowing what the game was made his stomach flutter nervously, and he only hoped it didn't involve making fun of him.

"Please," Kyu said laughing, "Hachi here can't handle much more!"

"Stop it, I'm fine," the man in question said. "What is it?"

Jadeite explained: "We shall write our names in calligraphy and use our imaginations to tell what they look like. I swear, it will be fun."

"But, Jadeite," Kyu said, "how are we—I mean, how is Hachi here going to write calligraphy when he's so ridiculously inebriated? And not even that good to begin with." For that he received a harsh look from his friend.

"That's the whole point," said Jadeite, and his two friends immediately set to the task, Hachi with a concentrated frown on his face.

Zoisite smiled to himself. He'd written his name in the language of the Middle Kingdom since he was thirteen, and even the Japanese _kana_ were not unfamiliar to him. However, he decided to play with his comrade a little, and wrote his name in Arabic.

"Finished!" Kyu announced, and turned to his friend. "Well, Hachi, hurry up and show us yours first." The man in question held up his paper, with his name written in relatively neat calligraphy displayed on it. Everyone agreed that, besides being fine handwriting, it looked like a mountain—and Kyu decided his friend was consequently a rather droll person. When it came to Kyu's turn, however, the paper was a mess of lop-sided, wobbly characters. "Kyu," Jadeite said, courteously trying not to laugh out loud, "are you sure that's your name?"

Kyu glanced at his work and admitted in a mumble, "I guess I've had a lot to drink." Hachi rolled his eyes and giggled. "So, what does it look like?"

Jadeite shook his head. "Normally I'm very good at this game," he said, "but this time, Kyu . . . you might have stumped me."

"Yes," said Hachi, "it just looks like squiggles."

"It looks to me like a crazy man running in circles," Zoisite said.

"Yes," added Jadeite, "like he's completely lost his mind and taken off all his clothes. He looks rather skinny, too." He pointed at the paper, and then at Kyu, and laughed. "Wait, I think I see a resemblance. Kyu, you remember that time—"

"Hey." Kyu raised his finger at Jadeite and put on the most threatening frown possible in his state. "I thought I told you never to bring that up."

"Bring what up?" Zoisite asked, grinning, just to see the look on the man's face.

Kyu glared at Jadeite.

"I propose a drink to that!" Hachi said, and downed his sake, immediately bursting into laughter again. Zoisite followed his example, just as Hachi asked Jadeite, "What about yours?"

"Oh, never mind that," Jadeite said with a hasty wave. "Zoisite is the guest. Let's see what he's come up with." The three men and the dancers studied the paper as Jadeite held it up, until the Japanese emperor sighed and laughed. "My, Zoisite, you must be drunk! This doesn't say anything."

He laughed, despite feeling offense. "Of course, it does. That's my name in Arabic."

"Arabic!" Jadeite scoffed and took his own stylus to the paper. "This is how you spell your name in Japanese, Zoisite." And he held it up for his friends, beaming. "See, don't you think it looks like an elephant?"

Zoisite started. He felt the blood rush to his cheeks and snatched the paper out of his comrade's hands. "It does not!" he said.

Once Hachi started laughing, he couldn't stop. Right then, he fell over backwards. Zoisite resented it; but it certainly didn't help that Kyu promptly leaned over the table and matter-of-factly pointed out the trunk and ears, and feet and tail. Jadeite wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I told you."

"Ooh," Zoisite growled, "that's low, Jadeite. What are you doing now?" Jadeite was in the middle of an awkward sketch of an elephant when Zoisite pounced on him. Hachi and the girls just laughed harder, and Kyu watched dazedly as he reached for cup of sake, as Jadeite fought to keep the paper out of Zoisite's reach. "Hand that over. I'm going to tear it up!" Zoisite demanded.

In the paper's defense, Jadeite leaned back, and Zoisite persistently climbed over him. Jadeite laughed out loud at how drunk they both were, and that Zoisite had no idea how insinuating his position was.

Or maybe he did. Suddenly Zoisite hmpfed and stood up, nearly falling back on top of his comrade as the blood and alcohol rushed to his head.

"Wait—where are you going?" Jadeite asked.

He tried to calm himself down and grabbed Zoisite's sleeve to steady him; but Zoisite pulled his arm away haughtily. "I'm tired of being made fun of," he huffed. "I'm going to find the toilet."

Jadeite let out a groan to mask a chuckle, and gestured to a young woman. "Miss, escort my companion to the toilet."

"I'm not _that_ drunk," Zoisite said.

Jadeite caught the wounded frown barely noticeable on his comrade's lips as his two friends burst into fits of laughter again. He said gently, "You don't know where it is," and handed Zoisite over to the young woman. Jadeite couldn't help the smile that crept onto his face as Zoisite left the room. It wasn't sarcastic or mischievous, either. If he had been facing the other way, he might have caught the jealousy in Tetis' watching eyes.

"I wonder, is it custom to make fun of guests?" Zoisite asked the girl when they reached the toilets, "or is Jadeite making it up?"

"Oh, it's all right, Zoisite-sama." She smiled brightly. "He doesn't mean anything by it. It's entertaining is all. That's all you men seem to want to talk about anyway, who's more miserable."

"It's a ridiculous waste of time," Zoisite said and shrugged. "I can't believe I'm actually enjoying myself." The girl giggled. "What's so funny?"

"Zoisite-sama, can I ask you a question?" the young woman asked, blushing brightly even under her makeup. "You're not very fond of women, are you?"

Zoisite started. "What do you mean?"

"You hardly looked at _us_ all evening, except when we danced. Oh, I probably shouldn't say it—" She covered her mouth and looked around, her long painted eyes catching a mischievous glint. "But surely you know already."

"Know what?"

"That Jadeite-sama likes you, of course!" she blurted. The grin that spread over her face was uncontrollable, she brought up her fan to cover it. And she whispered: "It's obvious, the way he looks at you. If he wants you, will you let him?"

Zoisite felt his heart jump wildly. What a thing to say! "I really have to go," he said instead. He was certain he his face had turned red.

The young woman blushed even deeper. "Oh, of course!" she said, and bowed and waved the fan nervously before her face. "Please excuse me."

Zoisite shut the door behind him in the tiny stall and leaned against it. He let out a deep sigh. The young woman's words rang in his ears: _It's obvious the way he looks at you._ After the drinking games, the jokes, the presents for Tetis— Was it obvious? He wondered about his own feelings, and if he might have been looking back at his comrade the same way with all that sake to influence him. He ran shaking fingers through his hair. If he wants me . . .

—o—

They left the teahouse drunk. Zoisite hated to admit it, and appear incompetent to his comrade. But when he stumbled he was glad to have Jadeite support him. Jadeite put his arm around his waist, and Zoisite blushed at his touch. He leaned into it despite himself. Jadeite must have thought he was feeling ill because he asked Zoisite if he was all right.

"Fine," Zoisite said. "A little dizzy."

"That's because you're drunk." Jadeite smiled warmly. "We'll walk it off. The fresh air should sober you up in no time." He led him by the shoulders down the streets. Hardly anyone was out except those like themselves who were either on their way to a party or coming from one. "You had an awful lot," Jadeite said, rubbing it in; and Zoisite wished he wouldn't, though it was worth it simply to hear his comrade speak. "I probably should have warned you."

"Of what? I couldn't have had more than a few cups. That must be strong sake."

Jadeite chuckled. "Not really," he said. "They kept refilling your cup so you couldn't count how many you had." It sounded like a cruel joke, and Jadeite seemed to agree. "They do that to newcomers. It's like writing your name drunk. You know, to make fun. But I should have told you before we went in." He grinned at Zoisite. "I didn't know it would take so little—"

Zoisite punched his arm and Jadeite laughed, the alcohol making him giddy. Zoisite couldn't help grinning himself.

They stopped at a bridge over a small stream, leaning on the railing to watch the dark water flow out from under them. It was quiet there and peaceful. Standing in silence, Zoisite could hear Jadeite breathing above the sound of the water. "Thank you for taking me to meet your friends tonight," he said finally.

"Did you have fun?"

"I did," Zoisite confirmed.

Jadeite squinted at the stream, saying, "Good. I wasn't sure. I didn't mean to make you feel badly, if I did. Understand, if I said anything it was all in fun." He turned to look at Zoisite. "I really do want us to be friends."

Zoisite felt his cheeks burn suddenly, and hoped his comrade wouldn't catch it in the dark. "I shouldn't be offended," he said. "Your country and mine are completely different. I have to keep an open mind. Try new things. You did say you wanted me to experience everything Japanese."

"That's right," Jadeite said as if he had forgotten.

"I want to see more," he continued. "I think your country is fascinating, really. So—exotic."

"Exotic?"

Zoisite started. Had he actually said it? No, he told himself, surely Jadeite knew he was referring to the country and not his comrade. But he thought of Jadeite's bright smile as he said it, his lovely wide, blue eyes. He can't possibly read my mind—

Jadeite put a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. "Come on," he said. "There's another place I want to take you."

"Not another party. We should be getting back to the palace."

"Don't worry about it," Jadeite said. He added as an afterthought, "Unless you want to go back."

Zoisite chuckled. "I'm too tired to walk that far right now," he said with a shrug, and let his comrade lead him by the arm.

It was a boarding house from the looks of the place. It hadn't the respectability of the teahouse, and there were even more fawning women there. They greeted Jadeite as they passed through the foyer with unrestrained shouts and smiles. Zoisite stepped back.

"Where's Fro?" Jadeite asked once he had calmed the ladies down.

"She's in the back," said one. "I'll get her."

The other women offered them some caffeinated tea, and Jadeite insisted Zoisite drink a cup. Zoisite could hardly concentrate on what Jadeite was saying. The women made him nervous, with their flirtatious glances that they turned his way and giddy whispers. One in particular stood out, a girl with a face like a china doll's. "They're not used to such a pretty face," Jadeite told him in a low voice. It made Zoisite start as he finally noticed his comrade's proximity. He felt himself blush, and the girls tittered more.

"Why do the girls tie their sashes in the front here?" Zoisite whispered in curiosity. Just when he'd begun to understand the Japanese fashion, he came to this place.

Jadeite glared at him. "Surely you can figure that one out, Zo-chan."

He did soon enough. He didn't know whether to laugh out loud or hit his comrade. "Jadeite," he whispered harshly, "you brought me to a . . . a . . ."

"A whorehouse?" Jadeite frowned. "Really, Zoisite—"

"I hope this is just another joke of yours. When I agreed to let you show me your country, this is not what I had in mind! Jadeite, I have a reputation—"

Jadeite shushed him. "That won't be corrupted. You can trust Mama Fro. So relax, _ne_?"

A middle-aged woman arrived to speak to Jadeite soon enough. She was attractive, and hid her age well; her hair was done up and she wore a simple but elegant robe. Apparently she was the aforementioned Fro. They greeted each other cordially, and then she asked Jadeite: "What can I do for you tonight, Jadeite? I see you've already cheered up the place. The girls are always glad to see you come. But it's a little late for a party, don't you think?"

"Actually, my associate and I just came from one," Jadeite said.

"I see."

"Yes. We've been drinking and we're very tired. I thought we might be able to sleep over? I'll pay for the room, of course."

"Just the room, hm?" Fro said with a tilt of her head. The tone of her voice implied that she was not the least surprised. She led them upstairs down a hallway lined with doorways.

"Just one will be fine," Jadeite confirmed. Zoisite glanced at him, but he seemed not to notice. "We're so worn out I don't think we'll mind sharing," he elaborated, "but please let me pay you for two. I am very grateful as always, Mama. I know you don't like renting out the _rooms_."

"It's nothing," Fro said with a wave and gestured to the door that was theirs. "The girls adore you, and would expect nothing more than the pleasure of seeing you at breakfast." It was more a command, as she raised an eyebrow and waited for his response.

Jadeite grinned and nodded shortly. "Of course, Mama," he said. "Your ladies are too kind."

Zoisite was still somewhat surprised by the situation when Fro left them alone. He had not really realized it until now, but he was exhausted. Yet as he entered the room, he also felt a bit of disappointment. He could still feel Jadeite's soft breath on the side of his face if he thought about it. He hated to admit part of him—and it seemed a loud part of him—could have fallen for that uncouth, self-important, and utterly gorgeous young regional emperor. Now he was to spend the night next to him in a foreign place that could very likely taint his reputation.

Jadeite was closing the door behind himself. The bed had already been turned down, but there must have been some mistake for there was only one. Zoisite was about to correct his comrade—surely Fro would get them another if she only knew—but seeing the undisguised wildness in Jadeite's eyes, his meaning became clear and the complaint died on his lips. He had no mood or desire to argue.

Jadeite snuffed out the lamp and was at his side in seconds. In the dark, he took Zoisite's face in his hands, and kissed him violently. Zoisite hardly felt like himself as he pulled Jadeite down on top of him onto the futon. His heart jumped at the touch of the other's mouth, warm and wet, on his neck, and on his shoulder as the frogs came undone and the light cloth of his jacket was pulled away. Zoisite knew it was partly the alcohol that made his body react so irrationally to Jadeite's weight and caresses, but he wouldn't change his mind. If Jadeite was as good as he'd suspected, he wouldn't regret a thing.

III.Summer

"Oh, Zoisite-sama, it's beautiful!"

Yasha's eyes sparkled as she held up the brooch, tiny gold Burmese elephants holding up a giant violet ruby. The other girls gasped in admiration for the piece. Even Jadeite interrupted his breakfast to see what the fuss was about. Needless to say the pin was more ornate and valuable than the piece he had given to Tetis the night before. Zoisite showed no second thoughts about giving away the ruby, and smiled at Yasha's pleasure.

"Consider it a token of my appreciation," he said. He met the young woman's eyes to make sure she understood exactly what he meant, and added: "A beautiful girl should be dressed in beautiful things—although I'm afraid that ruby is no match for its owner."

Yasha blushed a deep pink. "Thank you so much, Zoisite-sama!" she said a half dozen times over. The other girls giggled even louder. "Your admirers will be jealous," one said. "Hurry, put it on!"

While the women were distracted, Jadeite turned to whisper to him: "You didn't have to do that." He snorted. "Elephants, no less! Why is _she_ so special?"

Zoisite laughed. "Are you jealous?" he said in a low voice, causing Jadeite to frown in embarrassment. "I think she likes me. Do you know she was listening by our room last night?"

"Shifty," was Jadeite's hushed response.

Zoisite nodded. "It's what she said, anyway. That she heard everything. . . ." Zoisite didn't remember much from the night before, only some residual bliss as he woke naked in his comrade's arms. Mentioning it put a smile on his lips he could not control. "I told you to keep it down."

"Told _me_?" Jadeite blushed; and now he understood that Zoisite meant the gift as a kind of bribe. The girls' tittering rose to a squeal as they admired the pin in Yasha's printed indigo collar, prompting Jadeite to grumble—covering his embarrassment: "Quiet, quiet! I'm trying to eat breakfast!?"

His tone was sarcastic, as the young ladies knew well. "Sorry, Jadeite-sama," they chimed together. One asked, "Don't you think Zoisite-sama's pin looks splendid with Yasha's kimono?"

"Ah . . ." he said, and Zoisite laughed.

"Did _you_ bring any presents for us, Jadeite-sama?" another wanted to know.

"Not this time—"

"You should bring us more presents like your friend's next time!" They giggled.

"Then you would be spoiled," Jadeite said, and waved his chopsticks in an uncouth, scolding gesture. "But I won't bring you any at all if you don't let me eat my breakfast."

"How mean," they said.

It was then that Fro came in. "Jadeite," she started seriously, "your father's men are here. They said the Prince wants to speak with you."

Jadeite did not put down his chopsticks. He still smiled, though Zoisite noticed him tense a bit. "Bring him in," Jadeite said pompously. "I'm sure we're not too coarse for Prince Endymion, are we ladies?"

Despite Jadeite's confidence, Zoisite saw the girls look uncertain. Endymion entered in a huff. "There you two are!" He stopped and bowed shortly to the young women, who immediately became silent and turned down their eyes. "You really should have come back last night," Endymion whispered harshly to Jadeite. "Master Rhombus—"

He was nudged aside as Rhombus strode into the room. Jadeite stood immediately, but offered no bow; and Zoisite followed, dreading the fear that lay under his comrade's composure. He was an angry-faced man, Rhombus, like a demon in a painting. Ironic for one of the old Prince's trusted officers. He wasted no time on formalities, and strode up to Jadeite and swatted him across the face. Jadeite didn't flinch; but Zoisite did instinctively, only hoping he could react as stoically as his comrade when his turn came.

It never did. Instead, Rhombus growled in the Jadeite's face: "You are a disgrace to your father's name, Master Jadeite. You may not have any shame, but he does, and so does your country. Are you trying to mar your Prince's image? A brothel, Master Jadeite? I should not be finding the Prince's highest officers in a brothel at all, let alone on his visit."

"We were only having breakfast," Jadeite said in their defense.

"It makes no difference," Rhombus said. "You were gone all night as well. As much as I despise it, I've come to expect this kind of behavior from you. But Master _Zoisite_ . . ." Suddenly he turned his menacing countenance in the other's direction, and Zoisite knew he referred to his fragile reputation. "His second night here, no less."

Jadeite stepped in again, saying: "It was my suggestion, sir."

"And why were you out in the first place?"

"Ah—" Jadeite faltered. After a moment, he said, with a note of pride, "I invited Zoisite to meet my friends. We drank a little too much and needed a place to rest it off."

Rhombus' glare became keener. "Why not go back to the palace?"

"I was feeling ill," Zoisite lied. "I didn't think I could walk that far. And Jadeite said the women here would take care of me."

"In a completely honorable way," Jadeite added quickly. "We paid a fair price for our rooms and slept in them without any other services, save breakfast." Rhombus eyed him uncertainly. "You can ask Mama Fro. We only used the rooms."

Master Rhombus turned to regard Fro, whom Zoisite knew would remain loyal to him and Jadeite. Jadeite was a patron and a friend, after all. He dared to glance at Yasha, urging her with his eyes to hide the giant ruby on her collar. She moved a hand to cover it just as Rhombus caught his gaze. He turned to Yasha suspiciously, but by then she had hidden the pin.

"You, young lady," Rhombus said, turning to her, "is it true what these two say."

"Oh, yes," she said with an energetic nod. "Jadeite-sama and Zoisite-sama are true gentlemen. They did nothing to dishonor us." She may have had the kind of beauty that requires some skepticism, Zoisite mused, but she spoke honestly. He only hoped she would remember their agreement, with the pin to remind her. "I swear on my great-grandmother's grave," she continued, "neither of them _slept_ with any woman here."

Her frankness and biting edge made Rhombus take an unconscious step back, and Jadeite had to smile. At a surprising loss for words, the officer shot one last mean glance at the two young men and said, "It had better not happen again, for your father's sake at very least," and he stormed out.

When he was gone, even Endymion breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing Rhombus could have done to punish his officers, but the humiliation was great enough. He pulled Jadeite and Zoisite into the hall to speak with them alone. "I'm very sorry," he said, always the compassionate one. "If it were up to me, no one would have been allowed to make such a fuss about this."

"It _is_ up to you," Zoisite said.

The Prince sighed. "I know it should be. And I'm so sorry, about Master _Rumpus_ especially. I don't know why my father ever trusted him. He didn't hurt you, did he, Jadeite?" He touched Jadeite's face gently, with such concern showing in his face for his comrade. He had a power in his hands to heal, among other things. Some called it psychometry, though Endymion never liked to talk about it himself. It seemed he resented being different. They all did in some way. Endymion did not need to say he didn't blame Jadeite. It was understood.

Jadeite had already begun to feel the tingling under his skin when he said, "It only stung."

Zoisite leaned against the wall. His hand had begun to shake, with anger and shame. He wondered, if Endymion understood so much about them, if he knew what he and Jadeite had shared. That he wasn't prepared to talk about. "How did you find out we were here?" he asked instead.

Endymion shrugged. "Master Rhombus said it's happened before." Zoisite exchanged glances with Jadeite, and some implication was not lost on the Prince. He remained polite, however, saying only, "No one cares what you two do in private. It is none of my business, and it certainly isn't any of Rhombus'." He sighed heavily. "Sometimes I wish my father was still alive. _He_ would trust you to be responsible for yourselves, just as I do. You know that." He shook his head. "Rhombus doesn't trust any of us. He thinks we're still children. But we never were."

The truth of his words weighed heavily upon them in the silence that followed. To see the Prince show such unconditional love for his comrades made both the young emperors feel ashamed out of awe, even though they believed as their prince did that they had done nothing wrong.

"We should be leaving," Endymion said at last. Jadeite left abruptly, and they could hear him as he returned to the women, joking as he thanked them for their hospitality.

Endymion watched them through the door, saying, "I saw your pin on that girl with the round face." He turned to look at Zoisite and smiled. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Yasha," Zoisite said and shrugged. "She claims to be an actor."

Endymion said, "She's in love with you, you know."

"I know." Zoisite rolled his eyes and followed the Prince out. Women tossed around such feelings with folly, they were silly creatures that way. It was a strange balance between grace and foolishness, their qualities, which this morning seemed more obvious and irritated him.

"Nephrite is waiting for us, back at the palace." It was said matter-of-factly, but it caused Zoisite to pause. He had completely forgotten about his old comrade. And he could just see the smug look of satisfaction that would greet him on his return.

—o—

"Since the Great Change three hundred years ago," Jadeite explained, "we Japanese have been trying to implement a more efficient government. We tried a system of currency, and taxation instead of serfdom, in the model of the Middle Kingdom. It was always in a constant state of flux, and always decades behind the Capital until the old Prince and his officers united the tributary kingdoms under Chinese rule. That was just what we were waiting for." He smiled at Endymion. "We have come a long way."

"Yes," the Prince agreed. "It's just a shame the Moon Kingdom pays us so little attention. They want to be active in our politics but never bother to send representatives to the Capital."

"Oh, I think I could live without that," Jadeite said with a chuckle. "The last thing we need is spacemen interfering in how our countries run. Our states are very delicate as it is."

"Politically," Zoisite corrected. "Physically, the spacemen are very lucky to have kept such a large population alive for so many generations."

"That's right," Jadeite said, the slow grin on his face perhaps showing his surprise that Zoisite was so knowledgeable about such matters. He had remarked earlier on how different Zoisite had seemed after their night at Fro's place together, joking that his influence rubbed off quickly, but it was obvious he appreciated this worldly and genuine Zoisite more. "They depend on us for food and water and air. So, maybe we are the lucky ones, _ne_? We have the Earth, and we have people who are free to go where they want and don't worry themselves with glass bubbles and spaceships." He tapped his chin. "Or do they? I should ask my friends; they have wonderful imaginations." Zoisite smiled, imagining how Hachi and Kyu would react if Jadeite asked them.

"Don't forget about the power of faith," Endymion added. "I grew up in a house where Buddhist monks mixed with Taoists and teachers of Confucian ideals. I never realized how important all these beliefs were to the people until I left the Capital and went to the mountains with Boxy. He made me realize how precious and brief life is, and to always walk the Middle Path, even as a Prince." He smiled. "Jadeite is right. We are lucky."

"Your women aren't," Nephrite interjected. Leave it to him to turn a mood, Zoisite thought bitterly. "If you think your 'Great Change' is working for the better, surely you must only be thinking of yourselves. Japan has had both men and women on the throne for centuries. But you would change that because it doesn't fit in with what the Middle Kingdom and your Buddhist priests tell you is the right order of things."

In his defense, Jadeite moved away from the Prince and toward Nephrite. He said, "It is for the good of my country that we move in the way of the Middle Kingdom. For the first time in our history, we are one country, under one emperor. For the first time, my people are happy and not killing each other for food or petty crimes. They look to the Middle Kingdom for support and generosity—"

"But where does the Middle Kingdom look, Jadeite?" Nephrite asked. "To Buddha or to spacemen?" Jadeite did not answer, but he frowned in contempt. "I tell you, there are many ways to _moksha_. But neither of these is the right way."

"That's enough!" Endymion said, stepping between the two regional emperors. Zoisite felt in his skin the electricity in the air that preceded the Prince's words, and mentally sighed in relief. He would have been horrified if his two friends came to blows. Endymion gave Nephrite a warning glare, and the latter turned his back on Jadeite.

"My apologies," he said to Endymion. "That was out of line."

"A-apology accepted," Jadeite interrupted, suddenly contrite himself. "Nephrite . . . Please, forget about it. Why don't I take all three of you to my spa in the mountains, huh? There are a plenty of beautiful temples up there, and beautiful ladies. . . ."

"Thanks for the offer, but no thanks," Nephrite said, and mumbled something to the Prince about seeing them all later at dinner. "Will he be a problem?" Endymion asked Zoisite when he had gone.

"I very much doubt it," Zoisite said solemnly.

"Well, why did he go off like that?" Jadeite asked.

"You have to understand," Zoisite told them both, "in India his mother rules the kingdom of Nagpur, protected under Hindu law. I know, India is stuck in the past. But I can't blame him for resisting the change." He couldn't empathize himself, however. And Zoisite knew there was more to his comrade's outburst than that, but Nephrite was a closed book to him.

"Well," Endymion said with a laugh that betrayed his unease, in a private joke with Jadeite, "he should get along great with Beryl."

—o—

"Tell me, Jadeite, how long have you been a saint?"

Jadeite stopped in mid-stride on the garden path and turned to look at Zoisite, seeing the sarcasm in his comrade's eyes and lips. Zoisite might have been oddly impassive most of the time, but when there was something on his mind he could be read like a book. "Well," Jadeite said, sharing in his smile, "I've been a _saint_ all my life, actually." He reached above his head to pluck a twig with a pair of under-ripe cherries from a branch. "But Boxy discovered me when I was seven," he said, "if that's what you mean. No, six, I think. I keep forgetting." He twirled the stem of one in his fingers, smiling slyly. "I was a precocious six-year-old."

"I would imagine," Zoisite said. "Looking for books on art and science when the other boys are playing outside?"

Jadeite snorted. "Right. I wish I could have joined them! Six-year-olds are not made to study politics. It shouldn't matter if he comes from a noble family or not. Whatever happened to boys being boys?"

"Ah, now that makes sense," Zoisite said, and looked down at his feet as he kicked the dirt innocently. He waited until he felt Jadeite's questioning gaze on him to explain: "You have your friends address you informally and drop the title of superiority. You like to act like you know more than everyone else, and think that makes you better; but you really just want to be the same, like Hachi and Kyu. You just want to lead a normal, comfortable life. Just like the Prince." He looked up at his comrade. "You even think death is a suitable alternative to all this. Am I right?"

It was Jadeite's turn to frown, but he tried to hide it. "Do I get to read _you_, now, Zoisite?" he said.

Zoisite smiled. "Go ahead and try, if you can," he challenged, a coy look in his eyes. Then he continued before Jadeite could begin to answer, "I'm not the same as you, Jadeite. I always wanted to be different. Knowing I was something next to a god gave me purpose in life."

When he was silent, Jadeite added, "You do like to know you're better than everyone else."

Zoisite laughed. "In a way, yes. It sounds so egotistical, though, doesn't it?"

"You wouldn't be human if it didn't," said Jadeite. "Although, my dear, you must admit that knowledge and responsibility is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you lose your freedom. One the other . . ." He stopped walking. "Now, Kunzite— There's one I really pity."

"Kunzite?"

"Oh, right." Jadeite scratched his head. "I forgot you've never met him. Kunzite was the first of us," he explained. "There's much superstition surrounding him. He was recognized right away, when he and Endymion were only infants. They grew up in the same household. Imagine how their lives must have been. All that pressure! You and Nephrite are lucky, living in ignorance of your true selves most of your lives."

Zoisite said nothing, but he thought he would gladly have traded the consequences of ignorance for the truth.

Jadeite sighed. "People think strange things when they don't understand," he said. "There's been talk since the beginning that Kunzite came from the Moon. Just dropped from the sky one day."

"Why would they say that?"

"Oh, I suppose because of how he looks. White hair, soft-spoken, strange eyes. . . . I would guess they've never seen a real spaceman." Jadeite realized by his wide eyes that his comrade might never have seen one either, and added, "They look like anyone else."

Zoisite frowned and said, "It's good they don't call him a devil. What do you think they say of us," he said, referring to their light hair and eyes, "who don't look like even the Prince's officers?"

"Maybe they think we're all from Outer Space!" Jadeite said with a laugh. "Who knows, Zoisite, and who cares? Psychometry still frightens people; but no more than the images of the saints in the squares, and people still ask them for guidance. You shouldn't bother yourself with such hazy matters that have long since passed out of importance." A pause. "There is one thing I wouldn't trade this lot for. They love us."

Then Jadeite saw the sadness on his comrade's face, and couldn't fathom how Zoisite could change from sunny to dark and cloudy, quick as a summer storm, on such a beautiful day. There was no one to see them by the pavilion in the garden. He tilted Zoisite's chin up the half-inch it took to meet his eyes, and saw him smile again. "The Summer Festival starts tonight, Zo-kun," he said. "Everyone is going, but I want to be there with you to show you all the wonderful things." He boasted, suddenly animated, "I can win you a goldfish! I'm an expert at the game."

"What would I do without you?" Zoisite said facetiously. He did mean for it to sound so, however, and was embarrassed to admit it. Who else would understand this kind of life? he asked himself. Taking Jadeite's hand in his own, he kissed his comrade's knuckles with the mixed tenderness of a friend and something more. "Really. I appreciate it."

IV.Tengu

The late-summer air was hot and humid, even inside the theater. Waving fans were the only movement in the crowd, as even in the heat the people's attention was completely focused on the play. The pale, painted faces and masks of the actors fell still and silent, even as they remained charged with human emotion. Zoisite felt his own heart ache seeing the frowns never change. Then the flute started softly again, stretching out each note. The drum kept a painstaking pace, and the lead actor sang, his voice loud in the theater and so sad in its wavering tones.

Jadeite leaned over to whisper in Zoisite's ear, "Pay close attention." Zoisite straightened his back and sighed, feeling the proximity of the Japanese emperor, but never let his eyes leave the actors. "This is the part when the hero dreams of the gods who are molding his life."

"And then," Zoisite whispered back, feeling the plight of the characters weighing on his heart, "surely it must bring him some peace to know."

"No," Jadeite said. "He kills himself." Zoisite gasped beside him, and tears came to his eyes at the revelation, he was so engrossed in the story. Seeing the sadness on his comrade's beautiful face put a smile on Jadeite's own; but he touched Zoisite's arm gently and said, "I'm sorry if I ruined the surprise for you."

When it was over, and the misty-eyed audience began to leave the theater or gather to discuss the series of plays, Jadeite grabbed Zoisite's arm and took him to a room that was full of laughter, a far cry from the performance just before. The actors were there, graciously receiving the adoration of their most important fans, the noblemen and women. One of the lead actors recognized him right away, and waving him over saying, "Ah, Jadeite-sama, and what did you think of today's performance?"

"Inspiring," Jadeite said, and added jokingly, "but I've heard better singing." The man who had asked him his opinion scowled, but could not erase the grin that went with it. "Yes, well, I am recovering from a slight cold, you see," he said.

"I see. Of course, my friend found it very moving, moving to tears. A truly cathartic experience." He pulled Zoisite closer to him and laughed.

The actor's eyes widened happily as he turned to Zoisite. "Did you, now?"

Zoisite blushed. "The plays in my country are a bit more grand," he said, "but never even half as true and emotional as this. It was stunning."

The man nodded in silent gratitude. The teenage boy beside him, though, leaned forward in a cocky manner that clashed awkwardly with his woman's kimono and make-up. "And what about _my_ performance, Jadeite-sama?"

"You're always terrific, my dear Shichi," Jadeite said. "You make a wonderful goddess, although not a very humble one."

"Is it your opinion the goddess is humble, my lord?" The boy smiled, looking all of fourteen with his white make-up and blackened teeth. His painted eyes turned to Zoisite, looking the young emperor up and down disapprovingly. "Still, I'm most happy to see _you_, Jadeite-sama, who always appreciates beauty where he finds it." His blush was barely noticeable. "No offense to your friend, but I've seen the shameless melodrama of the Chinese opera, and Balinese morality plays are tawdry and dull. Japanese theater is truly the most refined." He added, tilting his head up even more, "And I should know: I've been _all_ over."

Zoisite smiled sarcastically. "Yes, I'm sure you have." Jadeite laughed lightly beside him, but Zoisite told the boy evenly, "I meant no offense to _you_, your highness. All I meant to say was that the choreography of Siamese theater is more colorful."

Shichi's cheeks colored behind the make-up, as he took it as a personal slight, and his gaze became vicious. Some of the other actors had fallen silent, including the lead, who smiled knowingly at the boy's displeasure. A sharp glare from Shichi and the man snapped open his fan to cover an ecstatic grin. Zoisite tried to hide his own smile, even though Jadeite didn't. It was apparent to him now the young actor was jealous, embarrassingly so, and he found himself subtly leaning a little closer into Jadeite than he would have in a crowd. "Jadeite, I'm going to find Endymion," Zoisite said, and bowed curtly to the boy. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master Shichi."

He could feel the boy's eyes on him as he left his comrade, and the other's actors' stifled laughter.

He looked for Endymion's familiar face in the crowd; but before he could find it, another one caught his attention. It was a young boy, no more than nine or ten by the look of him, with a baby-fat face and unruly black hair. He stood silently among a group of adults who were undoubtedly discussing the play. Watching him, Zoisite had the feeling he knew the boy, or perhaps the other way around, especially when the boy turned to look at him, and his intelligent eyes widened in surprise.

"Zoisite."

Zoisite started as he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Boxy, who was oblivious to the boy across the way. "You should not sneak up on me like that," Zoisite told him. He looked back in the boy's direction, but he was looking somewhere else. "What do you want?" he asked the chela. "Has Nephrite talked your ear off yet?"

"No." Zoisite detected exasperation in his tone. "The Prince was worried we might have lost you to Jadeite and his . . . friends."

"Well, you haven't lost me. Look, Boxy." Zoisite pulled him over. "Do me a favor, will you? Do you see that boy over there?" he said, pointing to the dark-haired boy.

Boxy nodded. "The beetle-browed one? Yes."

"Will you go ask him his name?" Zoisite said.

"What for?"

"I wish to take him on as my student." Boxy gave him a strange look, meaning—Zoisite guessed—that surely the young regional emperor wouldn't have enough time or patience for a student—if in fact his intentions were so honorable. "What?" said Zoisite. "Nephrite and Jadeite are busy with their empires, and Kunzite is the Prince's right hand. I must have some hobby if I can't have my own kingdom."

"And when you do earn one," Boxy said, "what will happen to the boy?"

Zoisite straightened proudly. "He will stay on, of course. In fact, I'm thinking he will be my own right hand."

"But why that one? You just picked him out of the crowd. You don't know him."

Zoisite could not explain it himself. When he had seen the boy, he knew that he would be right for apprenticeship. There was something else, too, even more abstract. "I have a feeling about him," he said.

Boxy shook his head, saying: "Well, it would be awkward for a monk to approach him, don't you think?" Zoisite looked him over. He was dressed richly like everyone else in the theater, more stately than ever in the black robes of a Japanese monk—although he still insisted he was merely a student. He told Boxy so. "All the same," the chela said.

Zoisite watched as Boxy approached the boy and spoke to him aside from the men and women he seemed to have come with. He was especially intrigued by how calm the boy was, and how reserved were his answers as seen from afar. He only wished he could hear their conversation when Boxy seemed to suddenly shake with excitement and left the boy.

"What happened?" Zoisite asked when the chela was back at his side. "What did he say to you?"

Boxy took a deep breath and said slowly, with awe, "He called me by my name."

"So?"

"My real name," Boxy elaborated, "not my Buddhist one. I swear, there is no one who calls me that anymore." He laughed and covered his mouth with a shaky hand. "Master Square . . ."

Whatever revelation Boxy was having was lost on Zoisite. He said impatiently, "Yes. But did he tell you his name?"

Boxy nodded excitedly. "His name is Bunbo. His father is a pharmacist in the city. I do believe you were right, Zoisite. You had better go and talk to him."

—o—

_The day I first met Zoisite I remember clearly. I suppose because in the back of my mind I had known about it before it happened. I have a gift, Mercury, that I cannot explain, and I don't know where it came from, aside from what Boxy wants me to believe. My meeting with Zoisite I had seen—how should I say? It was not in a dream, or a vision. The best I can describe it would be to say that I _knew_ him already, and what he would want with me._

__

Zoisite approached me and my tutors, who had brought me to see the play. He was wearing the yellow five-clawed dragon on his chest—the same as the Prince—that everyone in the civilized world recognizes as the symbol of the Empire and the divine. He was not our emperor, but, nonetheless, they bowed to him. I don't remember if I did; I was still shocked at that time of my life that my feelings of the future had come to pass. And to this day I can recall the look on his face when I close my eyes: his eyes and his smile were unreadable, but so gentle I knew then that I would never come to harm under his care. You see, my life was one of constant change, because my father moved his business wherever there was a market, and his family with it. It was my luck that we were in Kyoto at the same time as the Prince. Of course, I would have to be prepared to move if I were to live in Zoisite's household, too, but somehow I had been ready for that my whole life. I don't remember what he said to my teachers. As soon as he left, they took me out of the theater.

In no time at all I found myself standing in the doorway of my parents' small dining room, nervous as I possibly could be, before Zoisite, who sat comfortably at my father's table with tea for both of us and rolls of paper before him. 'Bunbo,' he said for the first time as he bade me to sit across from him, 'do you know who I am?'

I said of course, that he was Zoisite, the emperor of the Southern Tributary Kingdom. He asked me if I had heard my teachers say it, and if that was how I knew him. Of course, they had all mentioned Zoisite when they saw him at the theater, which I told him; but I had known his name before. I did not know then that he had not yet received his kingdom.

'How do you come to know these things?' he asked. I said I did not know. He sighed, and said, 'Boxy has told me he feels something is different about you. He says you see the future.' Then he paused. It was not exactly like he said, but so close I would not correct him. He took my lack of response as an affirmative. 'Have you told anyone about this?' Of course, I had told no one. My family and my teachers are not the kind of people who believe in the metaphysical; I did not have any friends.

'Then you must know why I'm here,' he continued. 'I have been told you have a brilliant mind, and are eager to learn, despite your modesty. You remind me of myself when I was your age. I would make sure you are given a good education—a proper education with only the best authorities on history and mathematics, as well as the civil and martial arts if you so wish. It is the sort of training the Empire gives a select few. I had it, and the Prince. I want you to have it. And I want to make you my second in command.'

'How can I refuse?' I said, with a sarcasm in my voice that I regretted.

Whether he caught that or not, he smiled and replied seriously. He explained: 'You can refuse, if you want to. I have already spoken with your parents, even offered them compensation for your absence, and they have no regrets about handing you over to my care, if that is what you want.' Of course they would have no regrets. My father hardly spoke to me, and when my mother did it was always guarded as though to a stranger. They left me with tutors and housemaids, although it stretched their income to do so. Why should they miss me? I did not think I would miss them much either. It is hard to miss someone you don't know. 'Ultimately,' he said, 'the decision is yours.'

I already knew what that would be. I was scared, though. I had to go with Zoisite, and I knew I could trust him. But I had seen enough to know just as much bad as good would come out of it. I did not know how just yet.

'Then I will go with you,' I said, and I felt solemn.

He smiled. We had tea and talked like adults—like no one had bothered to talk to me before—about scholarly things. When we were finished, I signed my name on a document to say more-or-less that he owned me, and that I had signed myself into his care on my own will.

_In the Moon Kingdom, where people look down on slavery, I often received the pity of others. I have never wanted it. What unfolded that day was my Destiny. I could not have resisted it if I tried; but more than that, I was glad it happened._

—o—

Later Zoisite sat with Jadeite over a game of go. He was still not sure of the rules—and he had a hunch Jadeite didn't really know them either—but it gave him time to think about his decision about the boy.

"I still don't know why you would want such a burden," Jadeite said, as though reading his train of thought. "But perhaps it isn't for me to understand. You will at least share him with me, won't you?"

"I don't intend to sleep with the boy," Zoisite told him, making his move.

"What else would you want him for, then?"

"He reminds me of myself when I was young. I only wish someone had rescued me from my stagnant life. It was difficult doing it on my own. He is a brilliant young man, and I want him trained as an officer of the court, instead of wasting his talents selling cure-alls to courtiers."

Jadeite was silent in thought. "I've already heard people calling you the _tengu_," he said. He raised an eyebrow mischievously. "Word spreads quickly."

"Yes," Zoisite agreed. He frowned over the board. "What is a . . ."

"Tengu?" Jadeite sighed and sat back. "Some old creature of children's stories. The tengu is a goblin with great bird wings who lives deep in the forest, with an ugly red face and a long nose like a beak. A hideous thing, really; I don't see the resemblance." Zoisite looked up to see him grinning and shook his head. Jadeite said, "It's because of that boy Bunbo. The tengu was a peace-loving creature." His smile faded as he said, "But he would take children and elderly from their homes."

"Mm. I must tell that one to Nephrite."

"Yeah? He'd like the one about the ladies who turn into foxes."

Zoisite was silent for a moment, considering. "What do they think I'm going to do with him?" he said finally. "It wasn't as if I stole him, Bunbo. He said he wanted to come with me, and his family agreed."

"I think they're afraid you might turn him against them," Jadeite said. "That's the Japanese spirit, Zo-kun. We don't always trust foreigners."

"That's the same everywhere, Jadeite."

"You know, it's about time Endymion dragged you out of here."

"Yes," Zoisite said sardonically, moving his piece on the board. "His officers finally think me worthy of seeing the Middle Kingdom."

"Don't be so sarcastic," said Jadeite, and took his turn. "Maybe while you're there, he'll finally give you reign over the last tributary kingdom."

"Perhaps. And perhaps your people are all too eager to be rid of me."

Jadeite opened his mouth to answer, but shrugged instead. "We are a conservative nation underneath," he said. "I know you don't believe in gods and magic, but the people here are full of old superstitions. Don't take it personally."

It was his turn again. Jadeite saw an opening and made the winning move, while Zoisite could only wonder what he did wrong this time. The Japanese emperor laughed. "You'll get the hang of it."

* * *

End of Part Three


	5. Part Four

Part Four

Finally he was able to escape the ever-present guards, and the Prince's line of officers and their endless questions. How eager they all seemed to sit in his quarters and chat about almost nothing over tea. Perhaps they were trying to learn something about the new regional emperor's character, although he was certain he had learned more about the Lady Sphere's lapdog's eating habits than anyone had learned about him. There was only so much tea and cakes a man could stand in a day, and certainly only so many visitors. And so he'd managed to get himself lost. What a maze this palace was, compared to Nagpur and Kyoto. Yet there was almost no one around—except for the guards—and nothing but the birds to disturb him in this of the many gardens.

There was a small viewing pagoda, only big enough for one bench, and painted red and blue with golden clouds along the eaves; and that was where Zoisite felt isolated enough to set down the block of ink and brushes he had brought with him. There were so many unique and wonderful plants in the palace, imported from the Prince's travels all over the civilized world, and everything was shining with bright early-autumn light. The pagoda itself rested on a man-made peak, surrounded by magnolias and plums and pine trees, and the jagged, wind-eroded rocks brought from the South that resembled in miniature the mountains to be found there. He wanted a sketch of the chrysanthemums for his books. Bunbo had been able to draw them before Zoisite had a chance to leave his quarters, and had told him excitedly—in his precociously unemotional way—on his return about the different birds that lived in the artificial forest. Now the flowers were newly in bloom, their long white and yellow petals unfolded like thousands of tiny hands hesitantly catching some of the last of the sun's heat for the year.

It seemed he had only begun his sketching when he heard light footsteps tap on the pagoda's floor. He turned quickly, expecting the Prince or one of the guards had found him to say merely that they had wondered where he had gone.

He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw who it was.

Leaning against one of the pagoda's posts was the most striking person Zoisite had ever seen. He was tall and young (besides the Prince, himself and Bunbo, he had yet to see another young man who was not in the palace guard in the whole place) and dressed in a light, silver silk suit that matched his hair and pale complexion. His appearance and posture were statuesque. He looked surprised, his slightly open mouth a mirror of Zoisite's own reaction. But what caught him were the young man's eyes, full of unabashed honesty and kindness. Both were unable to utter a word to each other, neither daring to move a muscle lest he make the other dissipate in the air like a mirage.

Finally, the man spoke. "I am sorry I disturbed you," he said, and turned to retreat down the steps.

Suddenly Zoisite was on his feet. Afraid the young man would indeed vanish, he rushed to where he had been standing and heard himself say quickly, "It's nothing. You only startled me."

He held his breath.

The man turned on the steps, and the autumn sun made his straight hair sparkle like it really was made of silver. His lips curved in a boyish smile, eyes wide and kinetic—like Jadeite's had been on their second night of acquaintance—as they met his again. "Then, please excuse me," he said. Zoisite could have sworn he felt his heart stop at the sound of that voice. It came across the ten-or-so feet of heavy autumn air like something out of a daydream—like an angel's voice. "I didn't think there would be anyone here. Usually this place is deserted."

"That's why I came," Zoisite said. "If I had known it was your place—" What? he wondered: I would have come here sooner?

The young man laughed. "It is beautiful, isn't it? From here you can see the forest and the lake together. In the evenings the ladies' pet peacocks call." He gestured somewhere to his left. But when he saw Zoisite stare at him questioningly he asked, "What were you drawing?"

Zoisite blushed. "Only the chrysanthemums. My boy said they were something to see—"

"Oh, you're the new one," the other said, with a nod of sudden understanding. "I'm glad. That means I will be seeing you again."

"Again?" The man backed up another step. "Wait," said Zoisite. "You're not leaving so soon, are you?" He cursed himself for sounding so desperate, but if this really was only a daydream he did not want it to end so soon. Besides, given the size of the palace it would take sheer luck to find him again. "I don't even know who you are!"

"Don't worry," the stranger called back with a chuckle. "We'll meet again."

Zoisite was about to run after him, but the loud cry of a crow startled him. He looked back to see the large bird perched on the bench, cocking its head curiously at the loot laid out there. Zoisite had no choice but to run back and shoo it away before it nibbled at the edges of his paper. But when he returned to the steps, the man was gone, just as he had known he would be.

I.Middle Kingdom

"Master Oblong says, 'One's single goal in life is to be a _junzi_, a noble person. He achieves his goal through mastery of the five virtues: _ren_, Sincerity; _li_, Propriety; _shu_, Reciprocity; _xiao_, Filial Piety; _wu_, Culture.'" Bunbo paused to stretch his arms. Then, holding the sleeve of his jacket out of the way with one hand, he dipped his calligraphy brush into the ink with the other, and held the brush poised over the paper. He began to write as he recited: "'The Master said, "At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right."'" He looked down at the finished product: the Five Virtues. The characters were almost perfect. But he stared at them dissatisfied. "_I_ will not wait until I'm an old man for such knowledge."

He looked up, expecting, even daring Zoisite to respond with some platitude about patience, as his former teachers had often done—when they did not scold him outright. His master, however, seemed to pay no attention to him, instead staring into space. With a snort he thought only he could hear, Bunbo moved his paper aside for a fresh one.

He stood ready to put down a Japanese children's rhyme about a strict teacher when Zoisite said, "I heard you, Bunbo." He moved his chin from one hand to the other with a sigh.

Bunbo expected more. After a few minutes of the unpleasant silence he said, "Master, can we study trigonometry instead? The tutor isn't coming today—he didn't tell me so, but I know it. Something important came up. A new shipment for the library perhaps. I will have to ask him when I see him again." He sighed, realizing he was talking to himself again. His master was staring out the window.

Suddenly Zoisite stood. "That's him," he said breathlessly.

Bunbo thought he meant the tutor and felt his hopes sink. He joined Zoisite at the window, but when he saw it was someone completely different relaxed. The Prince was walking down the path their way, a tall white-haired man at his side. "Oh," Bunbo said with some relief, "it is only Master Kunzite."

Zoisite turned to him. "Kunzite?" He looked back out the window, adding to himself: "So that's the great Kunzite."

"Of course."

Again, Zoisite turned to look at the boy, surprised. "What do you mean, 'of course'? Have you met him?"

"I talked to him in the garden when I was doing my bird studies." Bunbo took a step back as Zoisite's expression changed to one of impatience. "I thought you knew," Bunbo said in his own defense. "I put the flowers in your quarters."

"What flowers?"

"The chrysanthemums," he said quickly. "Master Kunzite came by and told me they were to cheer up your house, so I put them on the table. Didn't you see them? You were out, but I thought you would be right back—"

"Bunbo," Zoisite said, without a trace of disappointment in his voice. However, he was clearly impatient. "Study your trigonometry. I will be back in a minute."

He quickly left the room, and Bunbo did not have to look out the window to know he was going to talk to the Prince and Kunzite. Why he was so excited was beyond the boy; there was nothing special about Kunzite. He went to the shelf and found the math texts, ready to spend the next couple of hours studying alone, humming the child's song about a strict, punishing teacher.

—o—

_Kunzite was a strange man. I heard it said he came from the cold steppes to the North. Others said he was born in the Capital itself, while others insisted his origins were in space, and that he was not as young as the court officials said he was. It was always a mystery, but whatever the circumstances it must have been a prodigious birth. Kunzite was like the Moon-man from childhood stories: He looked and walked as though he was made of moonbeams and you could almost imagine everything he touched lighting up. Sometimes he seemed at heart as ancient as the Moon as well, though he could have been no more than three years older than my master. There are those who are born with more knowledge than anyone should have in a lifetime, and it makes for a pathetic existence._

_One of his eyes was gray, as light and cold and deep as the marble clouds at the Palace steps, and the other had a trace of pink, soft as a pale peony. It was from this he received his name—not from any precious green stone, but from the even rarer pink one which stood for compassion. It was as though nothing bothered him, and when he was troubled he was silent. In fact, he was even more compassionate and generous than his master, Prince Endymion. I remember he used to have gifts sent to me—books and new suits, and once a lovely little male songbird that died later in Bangkok—for no other reason than this: 'It is difficult for a boy to grow up in the Middle Kingdom.' That was true, but I figured it was mostly because I was Zoisite's boy that I received so much attention. He had a special place in his heart for my master._

—o—

"Wait! Prince Endymion!"

The Prince turned to see Zoisite waving as he ran toward them. He felt slightly embarrassed at having forgotten where his officer's study was; but Kunzite's carefree chuckle told him he had not even noticed the mistake. As Zoisite reached them, out of breath and restlessly straightening his jacket, Endymion said lightly: "Thank God you found us, Zoisite, or we might be searching for you for some time still."

"Zoisite," Kunzite greeted him.

Endymion noticed Zoisite staring over his shoulder at his companion, smiling wider than the man had any reason to, and it made him a bit uncomfortable. "Er, Zoisite," he said, "have you met my officer Kunzite?" Kunzite extended his hand.

A wry smile came to Zoisite's lips and he did not reach out his own. "We have not yet been properly introduced."

"I thought as much," Endymion said. When he looked up at his officers, they seemed not to have noticed the double meaning of his words, so intensely they stared into each other's eyes with almost identical smiles. He introduced them to one another regardless of whether they actually listened, and presently the three fell into conversation about their latest preoccupations as they strolled about the grounds of Zoisite's house. That is to say, the two regional emperors dominated the conversation, going back and forth about their travels and lighting up at every commonality they discovered. After a short while Endymion left them to themselves, with little more than a nod and brief apology from the others. He was not so nave as to deny what he sensed from his right-hand man. Kunzite's very request—to meet the future regional emperor of the south—had been a suspicious one. His claim not to know where to find him, insincere.

When he had left, Kunzite asked, "Did you get the chrysanthemums I sent you?"

"Yes. Well—" Zoisite felt his cheeks redden as he said apologetically: "No. I was too busy this morning to notice my boy had brought them in."

"Right. I forget how the courtiers get when they smell new blood." Kunzite smiled gently and brightly, as he had in the garden. "At least you won't have to go all the way to the gardens to see them—but maybe that is not such a good thing after all."

"Unless you should like I make them less crowded for you," Zoisite added, immediately regretting the sarcasm in his comment. But Kunzite laughed, to his relief. "If it's a Japanese maple you prefer," he said, "I can have one planted just outside your window."

Zoisite's heart skipped a beat as he wondered at the other's meaning (or was he simply imagining allusions that weren't there?), and for the first time he put up his guard around Kunzite. "How would you know what I prefer?"

"There is much about you I already know. I admit I was curious, because you're one of us as well, but in five years I've only now had the chance to meet you."

"Unfair. I didn't even know your face until two days ago."

"You just have to know where to look," Kunzite said.

Where to look, Zoisite thought. And what are the right questions to ask to get you to tell me that, and how you know so much? However, Kunzite's curiosity did not offend him. In fact, he felt flattered and all too curious himself. "All right," he said. "Then tell me why you're really here, in my end of the palace."

The white-haired man shrugged. "Didn't I say before? I wanted to know you, and be known to you, and I thought it would be easier to accomplish on your grounds instead of mine. Suddenly you suspect me of ulterior motives. Do you think I came to spy on you?"

"Then meet me for lunch or midday tea like every other officer in this place," Zoisite said haughtily. "Unless you think you're somehow better than them."

Kunzite smiled.

"I am."

Zoisite could not help but mirror his amusement, though against his intention. Here was a man who was honest, and did not hide his true feelings behind sarcasm and tangents. "Then how about this?" Zoisite suggested. "You may have all the time of mine that you need to do so, if in return you properly acquaint me with the palace grounds. I'm tired of getting lost. Now, that's a fair trade, isn't it?"

Kunzite chuckled. "Indeed."

"I wonder how many palace layouts I will have to grow used to by the time I return. You grow so used to moving from place to place in this position, home seems a strange land and what is novel seems only typical."

"I wish I could say I know what you mean, but I don't. The Capital will always be home to me."

"I don't suppose I shall be staying long enough to call it that," Zoisite said. "I expect the next time I arrive in my country it will be to an emperor's palace in the capital of the Southern Kingdom. That is the reason I'm here, is it not?"

"Let us hope you're right."

—o—

As the weeks passed the days drew gradually shorter and the nights cooler, and the insects' droning slowed. Still Kunzite had enjoyed them with Zoisite and sometimes his boy as though summer had not yet ended, spending long hours in the garden watching the birds or practicing martial arts under the quiet, stained eaves of a covered pathway, or visiting each other's houses for lunch, talking for hours about whatever came to mind. Casually they discussed the problems that faced the Middle Kingdom and its tributaries, and Kunzite was glad of the intelligent company and Zoisite's often-unintentional charm. He still was not sure of it himself, but he began to feel there was an attraction of some sort between the two of them. He could not get the image of the southern emperor's smile out of his head, or his voice as he called to Kunzite. He wanted to give Zoisite the kingdom he spoke of with such sincerity and passion, and thought to influence the Prince's officials; but he hesitated over the letter, pondering his own motives. Did this preoccupation come from himself or Zoisite?

He deliberately put the matter out of his mind to focus on the official documents that had been laid before his morning tea. From lack of concentration, however, he reached out to stroke Hercules, the Prince's albino tiger, whose large head jumped under Kunzite's hand as he was startled out of his half-sleep. The cat belonged to the Prince, but since their childhood he seemed to prefer Kunzite of the two just a little more. Like no other in the Capital, Kunzite had an extra-ordinary connection to any beast brought before him, which was a source of mixed admiration and suspicion on the part of the stable masters. But whether it was because of this or Hercules' sense of irony, Kunzite did not know what made him a more attractive master, for the cat was always present when he least needed a distraction.

Presently the low rumble in his throat quieted, and Hercules sat up on his haunches and looked toward the outside, as they heard faint laughter outside Kunzite's window.

Zoisite called to him as he let himself into the house, out of breath with excitement. "Kunzite," he said, and when he rounded the corner Kunzite saw him beaming, "guess who I ran into!"

Before he could even try, Jadeite stepped into view. "Surprise," he said.

He was quite a surprise, the image he created. He had on a long military-style coat, lined with fox fur up to the Mandarin collar, upon which were the gold insignia of a general of his stature, of a regional emperor. He wore a hat to match, the earflaps pinned up to the sides but still looking toasty in the autumn weather. His boots were polished to the point they were like mirrors and heavy gloves hung out of his pockets. He looked as though he had just then stepped off the northern battlefields—and as though he had aged. That is, that he had grown up, for his eyes still shone with the same innocent love of life but he seemed to stand taller.

"Jadeite!" Kunzite said, rising quickly to meet his old comrade. The two grasped each other's hands, and Jadeite pulled him into a big hug. Kunzite laughed. "Welcome back!" he said as Nephrite, in identical garb, followed him quietly into the room.

"I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be back," Jadeite said, taking a deep breath and savoring the room with his eyes—but not before they lingered briefly on Zoisite's. "Back in civilization."

"Even I can't argue with that," Nephrite said. "It isn't being in the wilderness that bothers me so much as the cold."

"So much for summer in the north country," said Zoisite.

"What summer?" said Nephrite harshly, but the other did not miss his intended humor.

Hercules wandered over to investigate the newcomers, wagging his tail like he were a dog, and with eyes closed and ears back headbutted Jadeite's thigh and hand as the young man bent to pet him. He rumbled his content deep in his throat as Jadeite spoke quietly to him about how he had missed him. Nephrite crossed to the other side of the room.

Amused, Kunzite said, "It must have done something to the two of you. You've changed somehow since you were last here, Jadeite."

"Changed? How?"

"I don't know, but I might say that it seems responsibility suits you well." Jadeite allowed a shy smile that would not have been in his character a few months ago, so careful had he been. "You're more solemn than I remember."

"Well, we'll just have to do something about that!" Jadeite joked.

"Yes, what happened between the two of you?" Zoisite joined in. "Suddenly I sense not a trace of the hard feelings that you had for one another in Japan, Nephrite." Though he said it lightly, there was a trace of something more accusatory in his tone.

Neither Nephrite nor Jadeite seemed to notice it, however, as the latter said, "He saved my life. That's most probably it."

"I don't suppose we shall bore you with details," Nephrite said, suddenly exhibiting the kind of amiable nonchalance that would have been expected of Jadeite. "It was embarrassing in the first place, and besides I think saying I saved his life is an exaggeration."

"It certainly gave me a fright though," said Jadeite.

The spark of adventure returned to his expression, but they left the other two wondering what really could have transpired to make them appreciate one another so.

—o—

Presently Jadeite and Nephrite related to them all that had happened while campaigning with the Middle Kingdom's army in the northeast. From their journeys over difficult roads and in harsh conditions, and engagements with bands of outlaws along them—even the mundane activities of the camp became exciting as the two told it, supplementing each other's narrative wonderfully, for they added the stories soldiers had told them at camp of their own adventures to keep the troops optimistic. Later would be the time to delve into the important details, when they went before the court to deliver their report on the state of the frontier; but for now they did not trouble themselves with conditions and statistics. Zoisite did not envy the camaraderie and closeness that had developed between the two, but rather was thankful for it. Sitting around Kunzite's dining table sharing banter and laughing, for the first time the four of them were truly together, the Prince's regional emperors—the _shitennou_. Physically and spiritually, there was about them a sense of completion that Zoisite never wanted to end. It filled him with warmth to know, now in the present tense, and to feel that he belonged.

The Capital did not feel so empty after that. Even though the others were usually busy with their own affairs, one could always spare time to visit another, especially if official business called for it, and the bonds between them were so inherently strong the four would sometimes come together unintentionally for discussion or a game of chess. It seemed at first a little odd to Zoisite that Jadeite did not visit often, but he soon learned his patterns (if it was at a time when Bunbo might be studying with Master Oblong Zoisite was not likely to see him), and was reassured to see that in no way was his friend lonely in his own house. He had quite attracted the attention of the court ladies—especially the older ones, who would praise his charm and good manners, and his poetry and bravery on the frontier—so much so that one wondered if he had time to get anything done at all.

The officers of the court felt the security that having the four all in the Capital brought. For there was a sense that perilous times were coming, when the Mongol hordes that gathered on the farthest borders would try to invade the Middle Kingdom. The Prince, and Kunzite as well, reassured the people that if the Mongols should try to overthrow the Capital, the Moon Kingdom would swiftly offer their assistance and crush them as easily as they might an insect with their superior technology. For that reason no one would dare try such a thing. But secretly they worried about the peasants who lived along the borders, for the country depended on their harvests; but more than that, they were citizens of the Middle Kingdom, and the Prince had a divine duty to protect them.

It was into this atmosphere that Lady Beryl returned from the imperial summer palace. Its splendor among architecture was well known, for the palace had been constructed to float on the water just as had Cleopatra's legendary barge palace, although Beryl's was made almost entirely of light gray marble. It was a miraculous building, and a dreamlike building, so that one would have expected the lady who occupied it half of the year to be just as graceful and mysterious—indeed, feminine in the extreme.

"Who is Lady Beryl?" Zoisite had inquired, but no answer was very clear, for everyone took a rather philosophical stance and said she was someone that could not easily be described.

It was ironic that a Buddhist would give him a straighter answer.

"She is the Lady of the Empire," Boxy said. "In _your_ scheme of things, she is the incarnation of this age of the goddess of grace who became a bodhisattva."

"Is she the Prince's consort, then?" But this seemed a ridiculous question even as he asked it.

"Definitely not. She is a counterweight to the Prince's authority. The world needs balance in the _yin_ and _yang_, the masculine and the feminine. She is like one of you regional emperors, except that her tributary kingdom is not on the outside."

This proved to be a hazy explanation too.

And ultimately misleading.

She arrived in a palanquin that had been dressed in curtains of golds and greens—a sight incongruous with the season but doubly appropriate for her namesake. A small ceremony was given for her arrival at the steps of the palace, and when she emerged from her vehicle to greet the Prince, her entourage following close behind, emeralds and tourmaline adorned her styled hair, and her silk robes that reflected the colors of midsummer seemed just as facetted in the way they reflected the light.

She was not slight and straight of build like most of the court ladies, but had a classic figure like a Hindu goddess. Her hips and breasts were pleasantly full, her waist small and short, and her limbs long and supple, if such could be implied by the way the fabric of her sleeves moved. Her skin was pale against her hair, which was thick and wavy, even in its upswept and waxed style, and the color of ebony wood. The color of her eyes was not so easily told, for it was wont to change like alexandrite, but next to the verdant gems set in gold that dangled on either side of her face they appeared a warm hue. She wore no make-up besides a light powder, which allowed a few freckles to peek through, for her features were lovely in their honesty.

Beryl curtsied low before the Prince and the four who stood with him at the top of the stairs, and her ladies-in-waiting followed suit. Endymion returned the gesture with a bow that was not very low, but no doubt lower than the old courtiers would have afforded a mere woman.

"Welcome back, Beryl," Endymion said in a voice that was not intended for the audience gathered in the courtyard. They would listen to Master Oblong shortly, as he said the appropriately auspicious words for the occasion. The Prince's casual address made Beryl's cheeks color faintly and she lowered her eyes. "I do hope your return trip went well," he said, "and that the lady has been well. I regret I did not return your letters nor see you so often this year as before."

"My Lord is very considerate." Her smile was restrained, and her words were louder, so that the courtiers standing behind the Prince might hear.

"Your house is made and ready for you," Endymion said.

Beryl nodded and looked thankful. But there was an awkwardness that existed between the two of them, independently in each of them, that was noticeable to the careful eye.

She was curt when introduced to Zoisite and Nephrite later in private. Her elaborate hairstyle and decoration had been relieved, and she welcomed them while taking tea seated in a straight-backed chair in a plain suit like theirs. It seemed inconsistent with the elegance she had exuded upon her arrival, but there was something to be admired as refreshing about her frankness. Zoisite decided the brevity that she accorded them must have been due to shyness.

II.Beryl

_Beryl was the fifth of the Heavenly Guardians, though she was not a regional emperor and did not have a proper kingdom. She was named after the most beautiful green stone of them all for love, beauty, grace and the other feminine virtues. And like the emerald, she was also translucent and flawed. Not physically, as Nature had blessed her with a fair and handsome face and a full figure that was envied. No, in the Middle Kingdom, and indeed on Earth in almost any land which considers itself civilized, a woman should be honored for her grace and wit but is still only second to man. Her mind is not as capable as a man's, for she governs with her emotional reaction and not with logic. Therefore she is to be left out of high-ranking, deciding positions._

__

This is the belief, of which I know you have first-hand knowledge because you told me. And as it tried you it tried Beryl doubly, for she lived in it. It has been the bane of her existence that for all a man's duties she performs she cannot earn for them the respect a man does. She is very clever, and headstrong, holding fast to her convictions. She is skilled at the martial arts and in the matters of politics, and it is in these fields that her grace truly comes out—not in the songs and gossip and dalliances of most women of the court. If she were born a man, these traits of her character would have been seen as the highest virtues.

And for this she stands between worlds—the world of men and that of women—not fitting into either one.

For this I have always felt sorry for her. Even to try to compare my experience, to say that my precociousness left me an outsider, would not do justice, for I am still a man. How lucky you are, Princess, to have been born in the planetary kingdoms! Do not take what great power you have for granted. But do remember her situation and be kind when you deal with her.

_Now I tell you this in confidence, that above all Beryl loves the Prince. If she scorns the attentions of suitors from the planets, it is because of her feelings and not that she is cold. I think she would do anything for him: she was protective of him from the beginning._

—o—

It was an unseasonably warm day when Jadeite said he wanted to practice sword fighting, and so Zoisite and Nephrite were dragged down to the practice hall with him with the excuse that such days as that would be, in short time, hard to find. Beryl joined them, though with no coaxing from Jadeite. Her nonchalant poise made it even seem the trip was her idea. They found the place nearly empty: Master Kite oversaw a couple of the palace guards as they practiced a duel, and Kunzite sat to one side vacillating between the action and correspondence. He rose immediately when he saw the four enter the room. Kite uncrossed his thick arms and, with a wave to the men to keep up their fight, went to greet them. "All four kings in one place. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"To old times' sake," Jadeite said with a casual smile, as though speaking to a shopkeeper he visited often. "We wish to use the establishment if it's not already occupied."

"Of course," said Kite, and at his words the guards finished their battle and returned their armaments. Apparently there was no argument as to who arrived first where the Heavenly Guardians were involved. With a word to Kunzite, Kite and his men left the five alone.

"Looking for a rematch, Jadeite?" Kunzite asked, smiling as he stepped down onto the practice floor to greet them.

"No," said Jadeite. Beryl was already examining the swords in the rack on the wall. "To celebrate Beryl's return, I think I should like to fight a woman today."

Zoisite almost laughed out loud. How very unlike Jadeite. "That doesn't sound like a very fair fight," he said.

"It isn't," Jadeite said through a lopsided grin.

At that, Beryl glared at him as she handed Jadeite his sword. "You don't think a woman can fight a man?"

"Oh, but I think a woman is a more than worthy opponent," Jadeite said, seeming to think her remark had been directed at him. "Woman is a vicious creature. It's the mother instinct that makes one so ferocious, if not for the protection of the child than for the protection of her integrity. It is precisely that which makes her _more_ dangerous."

Beryl smiled. "So, you think you know how women work, do you? On your guard, _man_!"

And with that she charged him. The clang of their swords rang throughout the building. Zoisite was surprised by Beryl's physical strength and her fighting spirit. When he had first seen her, at her arrival, she had about her the stately and feminine air of a true princess; now she seemed more like a man, matching Jadeite's every move with only a few backwards stumbles to show for the differences between the sexes. Even Jadeite seemed to be struggling and not holding back, despite the cocky look on his face. Zoisite wondered if fighting was ever not a game to him.

"You surprise me, Jadeite," he said, taking a seat near Kunzite to watch the action. "I was under the impression you thought men and women weren't equals."

Jadeite laughed. Beryl swung with irritation at that, asking: "Is that true?"

"I'm not a misogynist, you know," he replied to both of them, backing Beryl up a few steps.

"A philanderer, maybe," Kunzite said under his breath, and the others laughed.

Jadeite pretended he hadn't heard. "I simply believe the sexes have complimentary places in life, and if that is sexist and old-fashioned then I am guilty as charged." His words took on a more serious tone when he added: "And I don't think women should be statesmen."

"Who else will plead the case of the common people?" said Beryl between breaths.

"Why, women of course! I don't deny that; they're more in touch with human issues than all the philosophers and scientists put together. But they are better served as wives and princesses than emperors."

"But your mother was an emperor," said Nephrite.

For a split second, Jadeite's countenance darkened. "I know."

His answer startled Zoisite, as did Nephrite's knowledge of this fact. When had they become so close? Not having been there, Zoisite could not imagine it. Neither could he believe Jadeite would have neglected to tell him something that now seemed so crucial to his character. However, it certainly cleared up some of the burning questions in his mind: Nephrite's sympathy would be easier to gain if one had a mother so like his own, and somehow it explained Jadeite's desire to distance himself from the hierarchy.

He turned to Kunzite. "Is that true?" he asked. "Jadeite's mother ruled Japan before him?"

Kunzite nodded. "Of course, I only know what was said about her and not the person herself, but the old Prince had the utmost respect for the late empress. It was his officers, of whom Jadeite's father was counted, who disagreed violently with the idea of a woman on the throne of a tributary kingdom, even though the imperial line in that country is descended from the sun goddess herself. They maintained that a woman would pollute the institution." The young man's lips curled into a smile of disgust at his last words.

"And Jadeite blames his father," Zoisite guessed, though to say so seemed incongruent with Jadeite's own profession. "Just like Nephrite blames Buddhism."

"He only blames him for her death," Kunzite corrected, and they fell into silence once again.

Zoisite turned his gaze back to the duelists on the floor. They moved with such fluidity, matching each other's attacks with precisely choreographed parries and counterattacks at such a speed and ease that seemed to the eye to be intended to find an opening. The intensity on both faces was something Zoisite found admirable.

At last they finished in a draw. Backing away from each other, they offered short bows, both haughty in their effort to outdo one another in their slights; and Jadeite said, "I see you haven't let your skills grow lax, Beryl. You've nearly worn me out already."

"Then perhaps you should take a page from my book and practice more regularly," she taunted back. Then, more amiably: "You won't leave me without an opponent so soon, will you, Jadeite?"

"Yes, Jadeite," Nephrite teased him with a smile, "that isn't very gentleman-like."

Jadeite glared at him. "Then you can be her next victim if you're going to be so adamant."

He said it in jest, as it was an unspoken fact among them that Nephrite was the better swordsman.

"Not I," said the man in question. "Zoisite."

Zoisite started as the three turned to look at him. Glancing at Kunzite, he saw only a fascinated smile in the young man's lips and eyes as he watched the practice floor. "Won't you indulge me?" Beryl said. The ladylike tone of her words seemed pleasantly mismatched with the sword that hung readily from her hand.

Jadeite handed Zoisite his sword as he stepped toward the floor. Zoisite weighed it thoughtfully in his hands as he moved to face Beryl. "Something wrong?" Nephrite teased him.

"It could be heavier," Zoisite criticized, to his two friends' amusement, "but it will do."

Twirling the sword hand-over-hand before him, Zoisite approached at a cautious angle. And, tired of his showmanship, Beryl went in for the attack. The metal rang as Zoisite's blade came crashing down on hers, forcing her attack away and her next one from above, which he met only when it came dangerously close to his forehead. It was the pressure caused by two blades leaning against each other, the full weight of their wielders behind them, that aroused him about the game. The extra force it took to counteract her heavy swing downward he could feel in the muscles of his arm and the backs of his legs. He was aware of his posture at all times, which years of practice with the heavy Indian swords had taught him to be, and by the absence of sloppiness in Beryl's movements he could tell she must have been as well.

"I never asked," he said at one point in their match: "who taught you how to wield a sword?"

"I never told you," countered she, "because I didn't think it was important."

Her cold manner pricked his resentment, but he pushed it from his mind. "Out of curiosity, then. You must have been trained in all the martial arts as we were, to some extent. It wasn't Master Kite who oversaw it, was it?"

"What," said Beryl, "do you then assume that because I am a woman I must have been trained by female masters?"

"I did not mean that, but I suppose it is not so uncommon for that to be so."

"And I suppose you subscribe to the same outdated belief that a woman's presence in a male school would taint the spiritual purity of that school."

"Indeed where I come from such beliefs are considered novel and superstitious." He grunted slightly as her next attack forced him into an awkward position; and forcing her sword away, pushed her into a hasty retreat with a combination of well-placed swings that, in sequence, proved relentless. He succeeding in causing Beryl's eyes to widen. He could sense her heartbeat quickening. "In any case," he continued, "I did not mean to suppose or imply anything. _I_ was taught it polite to ask a person their master, whether they be man or woman."

A smile actually touched Beryl's lips. "In that case, Master Kite was only responsible for my early schooling. My real master was the old Prince's top assassin, appointed by Master Kite so that he might focus on his young tributary emperors. A woman."

"An assassin—"

"Appropriate, isn't it?" Kunzite spoke from his chair with an authority on the subject only he of the five seemed to hold. "That the old Prince's protector should train her successor to protect his. Of course, the whole affair is unknown to the court, who have never heard of this so-called assassin. I trust you will also keep the secret, Zoisite."

"Unconditionally." He nodded his assent, but said in addition: "Although I don't see why Endymion would need it. As the Prince of Earth, he should be more than capable of protecting himself. It seems to me an offense to him to claim otherwise—"

Suddenly, Beryl swung with unprecedented strength, the kind commanded by anger, and the sword deemed too light was knocked from his own hand. It fell to the ground with a clumsy clatter; and Zoisite followed it soon after, landing hard on his backside from a deft trip of Beryl's foot. Instinctively he froze, and looked up to see the point of Beryl's sword hovering a mere couple of inches from the tip of his nose, unwavering. Behind it, Beryl's eyes were a chilly violet as they bored into his. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the sword. She demanded of him to know:

"What do you think you're here for!"

Her words startled them all. Zoisite stared, stunned by her attack as much as the seriousness of her accusation, and the retort that had been building by their banter died on Jadeite's lips. Nephrite would not look at either of them.

Only Kunzite seemed unaffected by the whole matter. He rose from his chair. "I think all this fighting has caused you to get worked up, Beryl," he said with the same gentle tone one uses on animals. "You'd do well to let someone else have a turn on the floor. How about it, Nephrite?"

—o—

Once its arrival was clear, autumn seemed to progress quickly. The leaves in the gardens turned almost as red as the painted eaves of the palace houses. Cold descended, outside of the palace walls and within. Beryl's presence in the palace was to Zoisite like the arrival of a cold front, blowing icy breezes throughout whichever room she happened to be in. None of the others appeared to feel the same, as they got along quite well with Beryl. Even Jadeite, with whom she was always arguing, was no less than a friend. He alone was the enemy.

It was too much when Beryl suddenly said, in front of the other three of their group, after some comment he made in jest on the foolishness of a young woman's heart: "That is just the arrogant, ignorant sort of thing you would say. You obviously have little regard for the female sex to begin with."

He turned to her. "I'm sorry you didn't catch my irony," said he. "My feelings are quite to the contrary, which you might know if you attempted to understand me. Why is it that when Jadeite says something similar you turn the other way or reply something witty? You don't insult his character."

"But it's you I don't like," she said simply.

"Your honesty, at least, is commendable, though hardly flattering to your own person," he said.

"And I would rather have it than your sarcasm, which I can only postulate arises from an equally foolish nature."

The others merely laughed it off, but not being the target of Beryl's critique Zoisite found their attitudes toward him unjust. She infuriated him, and he knew not how it started. He was convinced it was something he had said that brought out such cruelty in her as a reaction, and surmised it was a comment made in their duel that one day. Although, if he remembered right, even before that time she had often left him with a sense that he had offended her somehow. Needless to say, no matter the cause of it, he would not apologize and had no desire to. There was nothing he said that Jadeite did not doubly, yet she treated that man with half the disdain, and even that was more the tension that existed between siblings than rivals.

"She's jealous of you," Kunzite told him, as others had before him. "That's all it is."

But, coming from him, it was only little more reassurance. "For what does she have to be jealous of me?"

Kunzite smiled at him then, as though the answer should have appeared obvious to him.

"You're the last of the tributary emperors," he explained. "You're the last to receive your own kingdom. She's known this for a while, so don't blame yourself or your first impressions—although your manner toward her could benefit from some improvement." He ignored Zoisite's ensuing glare. "Beryl will never have a kingdom of her own like we have. Not that I think she would want it so badly if she were to be granted it easily, if I can be allowed to judge her character. But the fact that she is denied simply for being born a woman is what makes her more determined to gain those privileges we take for granted. It is not enough that her kingdom is the symbolic heart of the Middle Kingdom. It would not be enough for you or I. And she does not think it nearly enough where the Prince's honor and safety are concerned.

"You are the last seal, so to speak. When you receive your kingdom, then nothing will remain open to her, not even the possibility of marriage. That you are a foreigner and the youngest of us, and distrusted by the old Prince's officers as it is makes it that much more of a disgrace for her. If I were you," Kunzite told him, "I would stop bringing your lack of a kingdom to her attention and wait for it to come, as it surely will, with quiet patience. To do otherwise would be as prudent as poking a sleeping leopard."

Yet despite such explanations of her character, Zoisite failed to like Beryl. She had wounded his pride as he had inadvertently hers. It was only in listening to her talk of politics or the arts—the more masculine enterprises—that he could be suffered to respect her, and then it was remarkably easy. Her intelligence far surpassed those of other women, whose foolishness was nearly absent in her manner, even if she had a firm grasp of those virtues deemed feminine as well when she so wanted. If she had not so eloquently shown her disapproval of him at the outset, he might have considered her a friend; however, speculation alone could not convince him that would have proved true.

—o—

"Haven't you noticed? Lady Beryl has been spending an awful lot of her time with that friend of the Prince's, Nephrite. I can testify to it for I've seen it with my own eyes. Staying up for hours in the observatory—"

"What she would want with that place is beyond me, unless Master Nephrite is giving her lessons of a different sort. You know what they say about Hindus. And as for him, to find that kind of diversion in someone of such consequence must be scandalous if there is any truth to it. It would certainly not be fitting behavior for _her_."

"Or is it simply that you're jealous, my dear? I have seen you look at all four of them at one time or another, not that _anyone_ can blame you."

"But we mustn't let her know we were speaking ill of her."

"It's true what they say," Kunzite said absently as they passed the court ladies, left tittering nervously together behind their decorations when they discovered they might have been heard by two of the men in question. "Women are never so cruel as to their own kind."

"Then I take it you don't believe what they say is true either," said Zoisite. "Let it amuse them. It is preposterous to think Beryl would shrug off her feelings for Endymion, as strong as they obviously are, just like that, or set them aside for the comforts of another. Neither would Nephrite so casually have a woman with her own brain, for all his chivalrous posturing."

"You would know him better than I. But I don't see your conclusions about Beryl."

Zoisite was sure he must be joking, he could hardly believe Kunzite did not catch his meaning. "What is there not to see? Isn't it obvious, the affection she has for Endymion?"

"Don't we all have affection for him?" Kunzite shrugged and looked away indifferently. "He is our master, and one with such a good heart at that; it is in our blood to love him. If you are suggesting she is _in_ love with him, that she feels desire toward him, that is what is preposterous. As she represents the goddess of compassion, I imagine her affections must be like a mother for her son, a sister for an older brother. Anything more would be practically incestuous. No." He shook his head, smiling slightly. "What you're suggesting is impossible."

"But why?" said Zoisite. "Why is it so impossible?"

"Things are the way they are," Kunzite told him. "The Prince's guardians cannot fall in love with him, let alone each other. It would be against everything Boxy has told us of the Way."

"But—"

"It would be against everything we've been taught of our destiny."

This last statement was made with a tone of solemnity that Zoisite did not feel it would be right to question him. Nor could he press his feeling that the rest of them were blind if they did not see where Beryl's affections lay, or if they refused to see it. The truth of it was that when Kunzite spoke with such unwavering, religious conviction on the state of their connections to one another, it belied a hidden uncertainty. It betrayed implications of a smaller, more specific picture.

It bothered him inherently. It felt like a personal condemnation.

Instantly his thoughts were turned from Beryl's to the nature of his own emotions. He could hardly deny that his expressions toward Kunzite had always contained more than a mote of curiosity; or that Kunzite's kindness affected the beating of his heart in such a different way from that which Jadeite's playfulness ever did, a more agonizing way. Perhaps, he told himself, he should take a page from this young man's book and recognize his emotions for the perfect, platonic admiration it seemed the Middle Kingdom wanted him to believe it was. But would that not be dishonest? After all, things are the way they are.

III.Clouds and Rain

"Are you going on the duck hunt tomorrow, Bunbo?" Oblong asked the boy as he put the books he had brought for his master's study in order. He glanced long at the spine of each one with a frown, setting them in their places in a row.

"I'm not sure, sir," said Bunbo as he assisted his teacher. "It hardly seems fair, using such large nets against them after they've all been gathered together unsuspecting for our convenience. It doesn't sound like much of a challenge."

From behind his own book, Zoisite smiled.

So did Oblong, slowly. "You find a dilemma in the taking of life? That's a rather Buddhist virtue, isn't it?"

"No," Bunbo said after a moment. One who knew him so well might have heard, even in his calm reply, an indignation that was repressed, even though his teacher's comment did not seem to contain insult or praise. "I have a problem with the ducks' overwhelming disadvantage. Even if some of them escape our nets, the hawks will catch them."

Oblong sighed, but there was little seriousness to it. "What little appreciation for the ancient pageantries of the court." Zoisite suppressed a chuckle at the truth of his words: pageantries. No doubt his ward found them distasteful, just as Jadeite did. The two were more alike than they cared to admit.

"Didn't you have those sorts of events in Kyoto?" said Oblong.

"I wouldn't know," said Bunbo bitterly. How quickly he tired of being the target of interrogation, just like a child.

"In any case," Zoisite jumped in, "I hear Governor Prism does not have much regard for royal duck hunts." He felt compelled to defend the boy in some juvenile vein of humor and solidarity.

Oblong regarded him slyly. "And Governor Prism has not been in the Capital for any length of time in several years. Why should he have any opinion of worth?"

"It's just that, sir." Zoisite waved the book he had been reading. "Having spent so much time studying the Moon Kingdom first hand, I think he speaks with authority when he says these kinds of customs are to be afforded no more regard than sentimental, symbolic relics of the past."

"Hm." With that, Oblong cracked a genuine smile. "Does he also mention how the Moon Kingdom's being virtually devoid of seasons prevents them from having to mark them with auspicious events? In that way, our customs are something from which to take pride." He paused in order to better make his point: "Now, you know that in all the Prince's officers you'll be hard pressed to find a one so sympathetic to the prospect of a strong, healthy relationship with the Moon Kingdom as I am. To ignore its influence on us and its potential power is foolish. But it is equally foolish, in my belief, to abandon with any fervor what makes the Middle Kingdom and its tributary empires so great. Their histories. Their customs." He glanced at Zoisite. "Their religions. Our greatest strength is in our uniqueness."

As he met Zoisite's eyes, a tacit understanding passed between the two of them that made the young man feel justified in having such a teacher for his boy. The challenge Oblong's wisdom afforded was an immense pleasure. "Perhaps we will attend, then, Bunbo?"

"But I don't think I shall participate," Bunbo assented.

"I see why Boxy's taken such a liking to you!" said Oblong with a laugh, and Bunbo bowed his head to hide his blush.

For him, at least, the sound of voices outside was a welcomed distraction.

They grew louder, the shouts of guards, as they passed by Zoisite's quarters, but did not come within the walls. It was enough, however, to draw the three from the table they had gathered around to peer outside and orient themselves to the commotion. "They're heading toward the gardens—" Zoisite observed.

Oblong nodded. "I wonder what could be the problem."

There was some reassurance in that if anything were to happen to the Prince or any one of this Heavenly Guardians, word would have reached Zoisite immediately.

A scraping roar sounded around them as something passed by in the distance, in the sky beyond the tiled roofs of the buildings that surrounded them. "Airships?" Bunbo started.

At his question, however, Oblong seemed to shake himself out of a trance, and said to them matter-of-factly: "It is nothing. Probably a test of the guards' reactions to an emergency. This happens all the time."

Whether it was a test or not, something in his last statement, at least—the look shared by Zoisite and Bunbo said—was true. Even later into the evening, the palace seemed to be on edge, people talking excitedly to one another—always out of his earshot. When he asked Kunzite about it, however, he was told simply that it had been a misunderstanding (whatever was meant by that) and was already taken care of. Zoisite knew instinctively, however, that there was more to it than that, and it surprised him to find he could not trust Kunzite as well as he had thought if he would not even inform him of the situation.

Although, for his part, Zoisite did nothing more to press matters. Something told him it would be imprudent to do so.

—o—

After the day's festivities—that morning's hunt with the other residents of the court and their retainers and the afternoon's banquet centered around roast duck spanning several hours—they retired to the communal bath, which had in the recent month rapidly become favorable over a cold basin in the morning. With Bunbo, whom everyone had generally taken to in these days as one of their own, the company made six: it was a privilege that the Prince could join them.

In the steam raised by hot coals, the young men who descended from Heaven felt compelled by inebriation, sleepiness and the previous celebratory mood to discuss the mundane and vulgar, and spurn topics of the state. Jadeite, for his part, was particularly fond of recounting his flirtations with the ladies at court. Even Lady Sphere, whose husband was the governor of a distant province— "She's the worst of them all, and she's twice as old as any of us! Three times as old as Bunbo," he laughed.

"I hope you're not insinuating anything disgraceful, Jadeite," Endymion reproached him kindly, "about such a revered member of the court."

"Which is just another way of saying ancient," Zoisite teased. "Sphere only needs a son who will listen to her ramblings, flatter her dogs and dress up in new suits to make her happy. I'm not sure whether to feel sorry for her or her husband. If anyone should be concerned about disgraces it's Nephrite." He turned to the man in question, who of all of them had been the most solemn. "Surely you've heard the rumors those so-called ladies are spreading about you. Don't they worry you at all?"

"I don't see the need to refute it," Nephrite told him dispassionately. "Everyone here knows that rumor is false. Let it amuse them."

Kunzite found some amusement in his lack of concern, and a curious smile turned up the corners of his mouth at hearing him speak Zoisite's very words. "You must have some reason for this calm other than confidence."

"Sure." Nephrite leaned back against the side of the bath. "There's a storm coming."

"How do you know?" said Zoisite.

"I can feel it in my fingers." And he raised them out of the water as though by seeing them themselves the others would come to the same conclusion.

Jadeite chuckled. "Ah, so you can predict the weather with your fingers?" He was sarcastic, but amiably so. "Are there vibrations in the air you can sense like your 'music of the spheres'?"

"I meant the joints, idiot," Nephrite said, and there was a lopsided smile on his lips as he said it. Jadeite nodded vigorously in sudden understanding. "But now that you mention it, it wouldn't hurt you to try to grasp a part of that vast existence beyond Earth."

"I think I'll leave that up to you and Endymion," Jadeite said and turned his gaze toward where the Prince and Kunzite sat, waiting for his meaning to sink in. He hardly seemed to mean Nephrite at all as he continued: "To dream of golden-haired princesses from cold, lonely satellites is all too Classical for me, dreamer though I may be."

But the blush that came over Endymion's face, bright even against the pink of his skin from the hot water, was a mystery to Zoisite, and Kunzite's discomfort was obvious to him even though the young man tried to disguise it. Zoisite could not help asking, an uncertain smile on his own lips, "What are you talking about, Jadeite?"

"I have no idea what he means," Kunzite answered him with an undercurrent of sternness that was somewhat surprising.

"Of course, you do," said Jadeite. "I'm reminded by that episode in the Journey to the West, about the man who took the Buddhist name of someone who follows the Eightfold Path. He was punished for his arrogance and dalliances with Chang 'O, the Lady of the Moon, by being reborn as a thing half-man and half-pig."

"What's your point?"

"The whole thing just made me think of it, is all. You should ask the men who wrote those stories what their points were. They always seemed to have one, as obscure and irrelevant as it may have been. Don't mess with the gods, don't tempt Fate. It seems like a good moral, but it shouldn't be we humans' problem that the gods have such short tempers." His words reminded Zoisite of sometime years ago that for a moment a bittersweet pang of nostalgia touched his heart. It was Kunzite's reaction that he waited for; his bicolor eyes seemed dangerous in their guardedness. However, Jadeite said before he could respond, in a more serious tone: "What do you suppose will happen now?"

"What would typically happen in this sort of situation," Kunzite said. "Questions will be asked to ascertain blame, and everyone will make a bigger deal out of it than it really was."

Instantly somber, Jadeite looked up at him. His voice was quieter, but his gaze was intent. "It shouldn't have to come to that. When will they ever understand the purity of a girl's intentions? As long as spacemen are involved—"

"Zoisite." Endymion's voice, suddenly loud and cheerful in comparison to the sober that had fallen over the others, startled Zoisite. "Kunzite tells me you and Nephrite are working on a new invention for space travel. I didn't really understand how it worked, but it was something about making it faster?"

The two young men in question exchanged awkward glances; and Zoisite blushed slightly, thinking his old comrade must be accusing him in his mind of having too big a mouth for his own good if Kunzite had heard about it. The situation Jadeite had alluded to was still in the front of Zoisite's mind, bothering him because the others seemed to be teasing him about what he did not know. Endymion's question was obviously a distraction—he was hiding something—but Zoisite felt he had no choice but to be his cohort in the matter, although it was at his own expense.

"More specifically, it's to enable a ship to escape Earth's atmosphere more efficiently," he said. "But it's still little more than a hypothesis. It's Nephrite's brainchild, really," he said, effectively dumping the responsibility of explanation on the other; "I'm just taking care of the math."

He listened while Nephrite attempted to explain his project to the others, Endymion asking questions and sitting forward with interest, and let the warmth of the water and steam erase those thoughts from his mind that he told himself were none of his concern. Meanwhile, he found his gaze wandering back to Kunzite, who once again had that unreadable expression on his face. There was something fascinating about it, how it could be so calm and intense simultaneously. . . .

"Well, my fingers are telling me," Jadeite said after a time, when the topic began to die, as he stood to get out of the bath, "that I've been in here too long." He laughed lightly at his joke, and it was infectious. "Kunzite, I want to continue our conversation sometime. Tomorrow evening, perhaps?"

"Sure," was the other's noncommittal reply.

"Until tomorrow, then. Coming, Bunbo?"

The boy nodded and rose to follow him.

"And where are you two going together?" Zoisite asked.

Jadeite beamed. "If there's a storm coming, I thought we'd still have time tonight to frighten the ladies. They're worried by accounts of nature wreaking havoc on mankind all too easily. Eh, Bunbo?" And he nudged the boy fondly with his elbow, who went along straight-faced.

"That's right."

"Just another excuse for you to flirt and ridicule them," Kunzite accused. "You probably think it's never too early for a boy to learn."

Jadeite ignored his sarcasm. "Say," he asked Bunbo, "how big do you think this one will be?"

"Huge. The strongest wind gusts in years, possibly even decades."

"And you know this from a premonition?"

"Oh, no," Bunbo deadpanned. "I feel it in my fingers."

Jadeite laughed, a little surprised by his straightman's improvisation. "Get out," Nephrite said and pointed to the door.

When they had gone, leaving a lighter mood once again in their wake, Zoisite could not help the strange feeling of pride that Bunbo's wit and agreeability had left him with. It must have been, he mused, what fathers felt. But as soon as the thought occurred to him, the feeling was gone.

He noticed Kunzite staring absently at his hand. With his elbow resting on the tiled edge, the tips of his fingers dipped into the surface of the water suggestively. Zoisite lowered it self-consciously, and their eyes met.

"It's getting late," Nephrite said, but Zoisite hardly paid him any attention. He heard himself answer, "So it is," automatically; and with that the faint remnant of a smile that had been on Kunzite's lips twitched, changing however slightly into something else. Zoisite couldn't read it for the life of him, but he well understood his heart's response, and the look he gave his comrade in return. Suddenly the bath seemed sweltering.

—o—

The conference with Endymion's officers had been such that even hours later its proceedings haunted Kunzite's thoughts as he paced the palace grounds. Master Oval's presence had been bad enough, but Rhombus' sudden return from Japan made matters go from bad to excruciating. His overt prejudice toward the tributary emperors was insufferable, his disapproval of the Prince only slightly less so and much better hidden. His accusations were unrelenting, and unjust, Kunzite felt to the depths of his being.

"Do you have any idea, Master Kunzite," Rhombus spat at him, "_any idea_ what an utter disgrace this affair has been to the Prince, to the Middle Kingdom? How could you let it happen? You must have known this was coming!"

Gritting his teeth, he answered as calmly as he could manage: "I assure you, I knew nothing of it. Nor could I control it. Do you think it was my suggestion, let alone my decision? I cannot read their minds—"

"Don't mock my intelligence!" Rhombus chastised him. "You're avoiding the real issue. You _know_ they have been forbidden to come to the Capital, not only by us—and with good reason, the lords know—but by Serenity herself. Are you _trying_ to break her trust, and what fragile alliance we have with the Moon Kingdom as it is? Do you despise your country that much, Kunzite?"

"That has nothing to do with politics. You know it—"

"What I _do_ know is that we have Spacemen blaming us for this— 'misunderstanding,' as you put it. This 'accident'! This is no matter to be treated lightly, and you should apologize to the Prince for treating it so!"

"Please, try to be reasonable," Master Oblong entreated the other officer before turning to the two young men who stood accused. "It is true, Queen Serenity's officers are saying Earth is to blame for the Princess' deciding to journey here herself, but the Queen understands they are only concerned for her safety and, of course, her virtue. She does not hold the same false assumptions about where the blame lies. No doubt she will punish her daughter adequately for this affair without anyone's interference."

"She must be grateful, at least, that Venus was with her, and resisted the decision as much as she was able."

Apparently, this was the wrong thing for Kunzite to say, for Rhombus and Oval both took the opportunity to extrapolate his guilt in the matter from this as well. He must have had some part in it, they agreed, if the princess of Venus was involved as well. He must have convinced her in some way, they decided, despite his reminders that she was the Moon Princess' guardian, using their feelings for one another to plot secret meetings. He could almost stand it no more—his fists were clenched so tightly he could feel his fingernails digging into the palm—when Endymion spoke up for him.

"It's my fault," he said. "Kunzite had nothing to do with any of it. He was only there to make sure the princesses were safe and that they would return immediately, as was only right."

The officers turned to the Prince with confused expressions. "My lord?" Oblong started.

"Blame me," Endymion said softly but resolutely, "if you must blame anyone. It was not my idea for them to come here. I had no knowledge of it until they had already landed. But it was because of me that Selena decided to come to Earth. I suppose she just wanted to see me again. She might have been lonely."

"Endymion—" Kunzite started. It did not seem right that the Prince take responsibility, even if he had more reason to feel culpable than Kunzite. It did not seem right that their roles should be like this.

"Shame!" Rhombus said again after a moment. Naturally, Oblong voiced his disagreement. "You've brought shame on us, my lord, on the Kingdom," Rhombus continued stubbornly. "You know how difficult it has been for us to build their trust. Smashed in an instant! because of your sentimentality. For _that_ you might have put us in peril. This is not behavior befitting a Prince of Earth—nor his closest officer!" he said, pointing at Kunzite. "A disgrace, Prince. Your father would have expected better."

Endymion's consolation when they could be alone did little, though it was sincere. He could not expect less. The young man who had been entrusted with the entire Earth was so talented at controlling his feelings; or perhaps he simply knew how to hide them in the face of opposition. Kunzite's body still burned with anger, his voice nearly brimming with it as he paced the room, asking no one in particular how the old men of the Capital could be so thickheaded and arrogant. "They are only worried for their own skin," Endymion told him. "I bet they would love to blame Selena, but they fear the consequences."

"They're cowards," Kunzite said. "Don't you think they could be dangerous?"

Endymion shook his head uncertainly. "I can't help thinking there must be some reason for them to be here."

"You have too much faith in people who don't deserve it," Kunzite retorted. "Just like Boxy."

He regretted saying such a callous thing now.

Distant thunder seemed to signal the dark rainclouds that were quickly rolling in from the horizon like a battalion. It mirrored the anger that still existed in his heart and tempered it somewhat. His thoughts turned to Venus abruptly, and how they had been of like opinion that brief time they had met again the other day: they had agreed it was foolish of the Princess, and yet could not help feeling compassion inside for their respective masters for the condition they all four shared.

"I love her," Endymion told him, and for that reason he could not honestly blame his princess more than he blamed himself.

—o—

The storm came just as Bunbo had predicted, preceded by gusts of wind not felt all year. Twilight came early as the dark clouds rolled in, carrying with them thunder and a promise of rain. Yet despite all the warning, the storm itself seemed sudden. The rain went straight from a sprinkle to a downpour.

Zoisite was outside when it started. He had been to the library, which seemed to be a mile away from his house; and though he had been confident in finding his way back, in the dim, wet light the area looked completely different. He resigned himself to his fate. There was no choice left but to choose the corridor that felt the most correct, and stay undercover at all times. After several minutes of walking, not knowing if he was going in the right direction or not, the wind began to get icy cold. He hadn't been prepared for that. Soon he would no longer have light to go by, unless he was fortunate enough to run into someone who did. He doubted anyone would willingly go out in such weather, however. His comrades were undoubtedly safe and warm in their houses, in front of their fires having supper. How he envied them.

Hope was stirred in him once again as he saw a figure running his way through the courtyard. He had no light with him, and a coat pulled up over his head, but Zoisite did not need to see his face to tell it was Kunzite.

Stopping under the roof of the corridor, he grabbed Zoisite by the shoulders and asked, breathlessly: "Zoisite, what are you doing here?"

"I—I should ask you the same thing." Kunzite's fingers were icy, and despite the coat raindrops dripped from the tip of his nose. "You're soaked. And freezing."

Kunzite smiled. "Not anymore than yourself." Zoisite put a hand to his own cheek. Kunzite was right. And he continued to stare at him, waiting for an answer.

"I got lost," Zoisite admitted.

The other looked incredulous. "What were you doing?"

"I was in the library. I thought I had more time, but the storm picked up so suddenly—and I wasn't going to spend all night in there with no heat—"

"Come on," Kunzite said suddenly, grabbing Zoisite's wrist. "My quarters aren't far from here. You need to warm up."

Zoisite couldn't reply, only blush at Kunzite's concern and selflessness as he was hurried down the corridor.

Indeed, Kunzite's house was not far at all, and when they arrived they found the lanterns lit and the guards waiting at the front door for their master's return. Kunzite dismissed them and urged Zoisite through the doors as though a few more seconds in the open would hurt him.

Zoisite had been here before. Through the moon gate on the left was Kunzite's study, and through the one on the right a sitting room where he often met Kunzite for lunch. There was a fire already waiting for Kunzite in his private quarters, the shudders were shut tight, and tea and dinner were on the table. But every time Zoisite had been here, there was always someone else to distract them from each other. If not Jadeite or Endymion popping in for a word, then Hercules or Bunbo sitting in contemplative silence. "Where's Hercules?" Zoisite wondered aloud as he entered the room and followed Kunzite in, taking off his wet boots.

"With Endymion, no doubt," Kunzite said. "He knows who his real master is when a storm rolls in. —Have you eaten?"

"Er, not yet."

Kunzite smiled slightly. "Make yourself at home." He gestured to the table set for one invitingly, but did not sit down himself. He stopped for a minute at the fire, then walked past into the next room, pulling off his coat as he went. Zoisite followed him with his eyes even as he hunted for another cup and plate; he wasn't sure if Kunzite knew he could see him through the carved door frame as he stripped to the waist and pulled on a dry undershirt, then a loose wool shirt the frogs on which he didn't bother to fasten. He only looked away when Kunzite turned to join him at the table. "And what were _you_ doing out in that weather, Kunzite?" he asked.

Kunzite took the lids off the food. "I had some last minute things to take care of." When Zoisite was silent, waiting for more, he added with some hesitation, "Sometimes people forget to fasten the doors and shutters on the stables and animals' cages, especially when a rainstorm like this one arrives so suddenly. I didn't want anything to die because of human forgetfulness."

"Were you checking up on me as well, then?" Zoisite asked with a smile.

The other smiled as well. "No. It was purely coincidence I ran into you when I did. A fortunate coincidence, if I may say so."

They ate in silence for a time, listening to the drumming of the rain on the roof tiles and the quiet, warming hisses and crackles of the fire. The occasional crash of thunder or the rattle of debris blown against the side of the house had none of the affect it did from outside within the comfort and heat of the shuttered room. Inside Kunzite's house, nothing could affect them. Yet every once and a while Zoisite caught him staring into thin air, distracted by something. It would only last a few seconds, so he decided not to ask.

Instead, he put his chopsticks down when he had had enough—which wasn't much the way his stomach seemed tied in knots—and rose, saying: "Thank you for dinner, but I should probably get back to my rooms now. Can I borrow an umbrella?"

For the first time that evening, Kunzite actually looked startled. "Why so soon? Why don't you stay?"

"Well, I don't want the guards to wait for me too long—and there's Bunbo, of course—" He looked down. "You seem to have something on your mind. Maybe I should leave you to your thoughts."

"Not at all." Kunzite did not rise, just waited for Zoisite to take his seat again. "If anything I need something else to think about for a little while. Keep me company. I'm sure everything will be fine at your house for one night. Bunbo knows you well enough to take responsibility for it. You shouldn't go back out anyway, and risk catching cold."

In those silences that stubbornly intruded themselves into their conversation this evening, the sound of rain was a constant roar, giving the illusion of drowning out all other sound, as the rain fell in sheets. It was not inviting. As Zoisite slowly sat back down at the little table, his look demure, Kunzite let out an odd laugh wrapped in a sigh that was like nothing Zoisite had heard from the normally imperturbable young man. "What's wrong?" Zoisite couldn't help asking.

"Nothing, I guess, it's just . . ." He looked up. "Don't you ever tire of the responsibility? This farcical play of what's proper and improper? Seeing the people who are supposed to know the answers making all the wrong decisions, with all the wrong priorities, and not being able to do anything about it?" It was a rather sudden question, and took Zoisite by surprise. He wasn't sure how to answer, nor was he sure what Kunzite was referring to, but Kunzite misread his silence. "Of course, you don't," he said. He stood up, frustrated. "It's not like there are any earth-shattering decisions to be made in Burma."

"That's not true."

"You don't even know what I'm talking about."

That was true. But it was still unkind. Zoisite told him so under his breath.

"Then I apologize," Kunzite said. "You must be angry with me for keeping things from you. I know you've been feeling something to that effect."

"Yes. But I understand now. If it concerned me, you would have told me."

"You're too trusting."

"That's not it—" Zoisite began, but he did not know a proper way to say, only with you.

With an exasperated sigh, Kunzite sat down on the bed. And Zoisite rose uncertainly again, taking a few steps in his direction, trying to determine which was the best course of action: to let him be or try to help, if he needed it. He looked distant and lost in thought, Kunzite, one arm resting on a bent knee. The curve of his neck in that moment was something noble. Looking into the weave of the bed curtains or nothing at all, he asked Zoisite: "Do you ever wish you could leave all this behind?"

"No. Why would I?"

Kunzite laughed, but though he sobered quickly it seemed as good an invitation as any. Zoisite sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. "Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a farmer, or a herder in the country. I could always disappear into the wilderness on one of the required, yearly visits to my kingdom, find a small village somewhere, and the only responsibility I would have would be for myself and my animals."

"You're a liar," Zoisite said quietly. "You would miss this."

He looked up. The impenetrable intensity remained in his eyes, refusing to betray him even when his words hinted at some deeply buried vulnerability. "How do you know what I would miss?"

"Because you were born for this kind of life," Zoisite told him. "You couldn't be happy anywhere else, knowing someone less trustworthy was making decisions that affected so many lives."

"You sound like Nephrite, talking about Destiny," Kunzite said with a smirk.

"I do not," Zoisite retorted, adamant. "I only meant that you should never forget you are a king. Once he's a king, a man can never go back to being anything else. He has a divine duty, whether he wants it or not. These scholars, who tell Endymion what's best for the people in what little knowledge they have of the world, if they were to be stripped of their positions and thrown back to where they came from today, they'd be prospering tomorrow—after they got over the slight. But _you_ would die. Maybe not in body, but your soul's reason for living would be no more. I would die if it were me."

"Somehow I doubt that." A wry smile touched Kunzite's lips as he said, "Is that what you think of Endymion's old masters? Those men have worked their whole lives for what you've accomplished in a few years, and you think _they_ would find it easy living outside the court. You have a lot to learn about people, Zoisite."

His admonition stung for a moment. "Maybe you're right. In any case," Zoisite said, "they're cowards, and I wouldn't trust them."

Something he said affected Kunzite, for at Zoisite's words the expression in his eyes changed. As they held each other's gazes, there seemed to be in them a look of solidarity that took Zoisite by surprise. They aroused in him longing that spread warm throughout his body like hot wine. The remnants of dark humors in the other man's gaze seemed an invitation, and he leaned toward him and kissed Kunzite's lips slowly and gently—relishing the sensation of momentary oneness, and bracing himself should the young man prove as cold and forbidding as he so often seemed.

Kunzite pulled his head back, but Zoisite could not read his expression, whether it was one of shock, repulsion or otherwise. Kunzite grabbed his wrist, the one on which he had been leaning his weight, and that gesture's meaning was just as unclear. "You don't know what you're doing," he whispered as their faces hovered inches apart, his downcast eyes focused on Zoisite's lips, daring him to kiss him again even as his words begged him not to. Testing him.

Twisting his wrist free, Zoisite was resolved not to satisfy him with a verbal response. His mouth against Kunzite's was all that young man needed to know he was serious. And this time Kunzite responded to his favor. With his hand free, he stroked the line of Zoisite's jaw with his thumb, his fingers coming to rest on the back of Zoisite's neck, woven into his bound hair, and held him where he was as he kneaded his lips. The deep exhalation he made when Zoisite pushed his tongue between his lips made his own feelings clear. There was nothing reluctant about the fingers searching blindly for the frogs of Zoisite's jacket to undo. As he shrugged the jacket off, rising to his knees, Zoisite yanked the bed curtains closed, and immediately Kunzite's hands were under his thick undershirt. His fingers were cold and made Zoisite shiver, but not for very long.

They parted long enough to undress. In the dark bed alcove, what light there was in the room filtered through the colors of the curtain, and the sound of the fire and downpour was replaced by the echoing of their breath loud in their ears. They were no longer cold from the rain. Kunzite's body was hot under Zoisite as they lay together; the tensing of the muscles of his hip against Zoisite's groin each time he moved his leg arousing in its human nuance, just as the breath Zoisite exhaled against his parted lips was alive with lust. It stirred in Zoisite such a deep sense of perfection and kinship: they were the same, of the same mind and desire and existence.

There were no pretenses when they rolled over on the bed and Kunzite touched him, when he entered him. They moved together, embracing one another. Zoisite's heart beat painfully in his chest, and the tension inside his body pulled tighter which each thrust was wonderfully agony. His entire person was so focused, he wondered if this was all he had ever truly wanted. To be known for what he was, to be wanted like _this_, to attain such nobility in another as was worthy of him and be desired in return . . . He would not let that go. He moaned and arched up into Kunzite, whose distant eyes refracted the pale light strangely. Like mirrors—and their keeper was his mirror. There was nothing else beside these two reflections of young kings, nothing else to think of; the outside world melted away.

Zoisite buried his face in Kunzite's shoulder. Slowly he felt the incessant, metallic hiss of the rain become him. There was no sign of it letting up. The raindrops hit the pavement so hard one would think, watching it, that the earth was raining, too.

—o—

Bunbo looked up at the sound of his name, and seeing the man standing in the doorway said, "Jadeite. —sir—"

The other stopped him. "Jadeite. We're friends now, aren't we?" The boy looked down. "Have you seen Kunzite? He was supposed to meet me tonight to talk."

Bunbo was silent for a minute, then said, "I have not."

He turned to leave when Jadeite called out to him, a slight desperation in his voice that could not easily be ignored: "Wonderful weather, isn't it?"

"I suppose."

"Just enough much-needed rain. Everyone thinks it's a bother, but I find it a cleansing experience. When I was in the North, it didn't rain the whole time we campaigned. The clouds came in and passed right over us. It seemed no matter where we were, there was someplace else that needed it more, but I couldn't believe that to be true."

Bunbo, not knowing what to say, nodded. Jadeite smiled at him. "You predict things, don't you?" Bunbo started, which Jadeite took as an affirmative. "I guessed as much: from what I've heard you say, you seem to really know what you're talking about, in ways no one informed as you are should be able to know." He added as an afterthought, "And Zoisite may have said something. I did want to find out for myself, though."

"You didn't tell anyone—"

Jadeite waved. "It's not my place."

The other let out a breath he was unaware he had been holding. "Thank you. I would hate to have people start coming to me, asking questions—wanting to know what I saw in store for them."

"Nobody would want that." One look from Jadeite and he knew the man understood him sincerely. Jadeite coughed. "In any case, I hope we can be friends."

"You and I?"

"Why not? We understand each other, I think. Birds of a feather." He lowered his voice and said, "Do you miss it?"

"What, sir?"

"Japan." The boy shook his head, and Jadeite forced a pathetic chuckle. "I envy you."

Bunbo thought of saying how he envied the young emperor in turn, for being able to miss it, but it seemed too great an effort. Even in an unusual mood such as this, Jadeite could best anyone in a contest of will. Bunbo knew so little about Jadeite, yet he could intuit enough to know what made them different people were the memories they left behind. What he wouldn't give to have good ones, to feel the pain and regret of leaving friends and beloved places behind. There must be some joy in living in the past, he thought; there was none in living in the future.

A sudden flash of lightning lit up the sky, and Jadeite looked up to catch a belated glimpse. Of course, there was nothing to see by then; and a roll of thunder, increasing to a boom that shook the palace floors, followed seconds later.

"You should go back to your room before you catch cold, Bunbo." Jadeite's tone was authoritative; it lacked the mirth it had had only minutes before, making his previous words seem artificial in comparison. Had he meant that about being friends? Jadeite was too incongruous to him. And when Bunbo glanced over at him, the smile too had gone, without even a usual trace of sarcasm that might have dared the boy, "Let us see just who catches one first." It made Bunbo feel ashamed for the young man's sake for staying and catching a glimpse of him unmasked.

"'The clouds still possess some semblance of order,'" Jadeite quoted solemnly to himself. "'They bring the world rain.'"

IV.Chrysanthemum

As if the cold wetness that froze one's very bones was not signal enough that winter had arrived and conquered, snow came to the Capital. It covered the curved eaves, the banisters and the boughs of the pine trees, making the gray marble clouds looking more like ice sculpture than stone. When the sky was clear, the tiles of the squares sparkled like diamonds in the twice-frozen footprints, and the air was almost warm from the reflected light until a sharp breeze blew by that would penetrate any layer of clothing.

For that few could be bothered to spend any unnecessary length of time in the weather. While the palace was transformed into a white and alien landscape, it was most prudent and comfortable to be inside beside the fire, a pot of hot tea and a treatise or two on imperial diplomacy from the fifteenth century spread out on the small rosewood table. At least so he thought until Jadeite corrected him.

Zoisite lowered the book as his standing comrade lowered his cup of tea and glanced up at Jadeite. "You don't find it interesting?" he said.

"Interesting? I can't say I have an opinion one way or another," said Jadeite. "But you shouldn't waste this weather. Did you read the poems I sent you?"

"The winter poems?" Zoisite reached to the far end of the table, where they sat in a pile. Again he looked up, still not sure as to the purpose of Jadeite's visit—though he should have known by now these occasions seldom had any particular purpose. "M-m. I like the allusion to the pine tree as an image of loyalty. It doesn't seem your style, but it's very good."

"Winter poems are not as popular as autumn ones, but that doesn't mean they can't be just as lonely."

"It is refreshing. You sent me three, though. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to send a reply."

"Do whatever you want." Jadeite's manner toward him had been somewhat chillier than usual lately, more awkward though he hid it well. "I'm sending them home for consideration for the next imperial anthology. They always include something of the emperors'."

"You must miss the contests at home. I suppose they might be having one right now."

"We should start a circle. You and I and Nephrite."

"You know I'm not much of a poet," Zoisite said with a lopsided smile, the first sign of warmth he had given his friend since his arrival this morning. He handed the poems back. "I hope you didn't come here just to get me to—"

"M-m, indeed I did not." Jadeite set the empty cup down on the table. "I was sent here on a mission: to get you out of your house. The lake is frozen over." When Zoisite only stared at him, he explained: "We're going ice skating. You have no choice. It's a favorite pastime of the Moon Kingdom. Sooner or later you'll be taken to Europa in Jupiter's orbit, which is entirely covered in ice, and you should know how to skate properly before that happens, shouldn't you? You don't want to make a fool of yourself.

"It's like flying; that's why they like it," he called to Zoisite down at the lake, as he skated away from him backwards. "Can you imagine, gliding along at half the gravity of Earth? A quarter?"

He made it look effortless, until the awkward stumble that nearly took him off his feet. Nephrite snorted his derision, and the two exchanged words as they passed, Jadeite spouting idle threats as he hurried to catch up. Zoisite was more encouraged knowing the physics behind it were simple. The blade on the bottom of the boot created friction on the ice, the friction melted it, and the melt propelled him along. He would have to trust the ice.

Once he was used to the movements, it seemed to take very little effort to build up speed. The cold breeze penetrated him as it hit his face and body full on, seeping through all layers of clothes; but he did not mind it. It was true that at this speed, for a moment when he dared to close his eyes, the adrenaline and disorientation caused a feeling akin to weightlessness. This must be what it feels like, he thought, to go into space. So cold, but so free.

He opened his eyes and became serious, for Kunzite and Endymion had arrived and were talking to each other as they came to the bridge that spanned a narrower part of the lake which headed into the grove. In a white coat lined with white fox fur, and skin almost as pale, Kunzite seemed to blend into the landscape like a winter hare, his gloved hands indistinguishable from the snow on the bridge railing they sank into. Next to him Endymion stood out in sharp contrast, a crow in black and brown. Zoisite drew to a stop below them, content for a moment to stare up as he caught his breath.

"Zoisite, what are you doing?" Kunzite asked with an amused chuckle when he saw him.

"I was told I didn't have a choice," he replied haughtily between huffs. "That I had to practice for the Moon Kingdom. Where were you?"

"I guess Jadeite moved faster than I thought," was Endymion's cryptic answer while Kunzite simply smiled at him.

When they came around the lake, Endymion sat to lace on a pair of the skates himself, while Zoisite exchanged his for regular shoes. Excusing himself, he joined Kunzite for a walk through the palace gardens—following farther into the woods the streams that were frozen over as well, spotted with dark green lily pads caught in the ice. When they stopped at a viewing point, Kunzite observed with fondness that it was the same one at which they had first met some months ago.

"So much has changed since then," Zoisite said, looking out at the gardens now reduced to an uninviting monochrome. He might as well have been speaking of them as not.

"Is it true you come from Araby?" Kunzite asked him of a sudden.

"Back then you said you already knew much about me. Didn't you know that as well?"

"But not all you hear about a person second-hand can be trusted." Kunzite approached him, meeting his eyes. His own looked pale and monochromatic against the landscape. "And after that, India and Burma. . . . This must be the most snowfall you've seen your entire life."

"I suppose you're going to tell me this is nothing compared to the North country," quipped Zoisite.

The other remained gently curious. "Not at all. I was simply concerned you may not be used to it. Give me your hand," he said, and took it in his own regardless, pulling the glove off by the fingers and sandwiching it between his own, which were bare.

"You're warm," Zoisite said, surprised because it was an unusual type of warmth for weather as consuming as this. It did not seem to arise naturally, but it was soothing, as Endymion's had seemed to be for Jadeite's injury earlier that year. The gesture was as one telling a secret, but Kunzite mentioned nothing of one.

"And you're freezing," he told Zoisite instead. "Can't you feel it? Your fingers must be numb already."

"They aren't. The weather doesn't bother me now so much as it did when it rained." His hand released, he hesitated to run a finger over an icicle clinging to the underside of a carving that protruded from one of the structure's posts before replacing his glove. It felt like he were merely touching the condensation on a crystal glass. He could sense the beautiful symmetry that had formed it, perfect and invisible to the naked eye. "It's a little strange," he said, his voice distant as his gaze was riveted. "I'm learning more and more about myself each day here. What I like, and never knew . . ."

Kunzite said nothing, but in his perceptive way was content to watch him.

—o—

Naked in the aftermath of their lovemaking, with no desire now to move, they lay wrapped in one another. The steam rising beside them from the bath, closed tonight to anyone other than these two, kept them warm even now, and would not allow the sweat on their bodies to dry. Even as it escaped through the bars of the window set high into the wall toward the winter cold, the heat did not dissipate. It made Zoisite drowsy as he caught his breath, and enjoyed the residual vibrations of their pleasure in his body, and lazily raised an arm behind his head. Through that gap on the wall, the gibbous moon shone bright in the otherwise black sky. It was the same impassive moon that lit the way for lovers returning home in countless _waka_ poems, that was reflected in the tears that they spoke of as soaking their white sleeves. Through his tired eyes or the artificial mist it seemed encircled by a halo.

"The Lady of the Moon is out tonight," he muttered dreamily, on a whim.

Silently, Kunzite looked over Zoisite's shoulder to see. He shivered slightly after a moment and said, "It makes me feel cold looking at it."

Zoisite felt none of it. He turned onto his back under Kunzite's arm. His comrade's hair reflected the pale light, shining like silver. Someone had said something once, he remembered, about Kunzite's resemblance to spacemen. "Have you ever been there?" Zoisite said of a sudden, not sure where the question, asked with such little genuine interest, came from.

"A few times," said Kunzite. "Years ago. I was barely in my adolescence the first time."

Zoisite felt a half-hearted pang of jealousy, that this young man might have been miles above the planet enjoying legendary feasts while he was singing ragas for his meals. Now it seemed as though only the former time had ever been, for him as well.

"Mm. It must have been amazing."

"It was." The breath he drew as he remembered that time left Zoisite's shoulder briefly cold. "To see the Earth from space for the first time is something a person can never forget. Even if I were to return a thousand times, I would never fail to be just as awed by it. Holding the Earth in my hand, seeing it sparkle like it were a ball made of jewels—it becomes nearly impossible to believe such a thing can be seen in such entirety, but at the same time it cannot be denied. From here, how can one appreciate how insignificant we truly are on this tiny planet within the scope of the Universe?—that our Middle Kingdom is the middle of nothing? Up there one realizes that merely our continued existence is a fragile, precious thing."

His low voice took on such a tone of nostalgic fondness that Zoisite tried to picture it in his mind as he looked up, what the Earth would look like from afar, small and unimportant though it seemed endless to him now. All he saw, however, was the cold moon and its halo, which, even though he knew it was populated, appeared only gray and dead to him now. "I wish I could see it," he murmured. "With you, like this."

"Someday we'll go into space together," Kunzite said, "and then it will be my pleasure to show you."

"I look forward to it." Zoisite smiled. "When I have a kingdom I can point to from afar as my own to make me worthy of it."

"Oh. I forgot about that," said Kunzite matter-of-factly. But that was all he said of the matter. He sat up wearily, and feeling somewhat bereft Zoisite watched him slide to the side of the bath. Even his slight clumsiness at a time like this was endearing. When all was stripped away to the least common denominator, even their stations, they remained simply two young men of the same spirit; and that, he determined, was what made his feelings for Kunzite feel so pure. How it could feel so natural when Kunzite teased him in his dry way about falling asleep and splashed him with water. His quiet laugh when Zoisite sat up startled, and the force behind his kiss even though it was Zoisite who initiated it. This, right here, was the perfect equation.

Don't grant me my own kingdom after all, he thought of saying, if it means sending me away from the Capital. How could I govern at all if this was where my heart lay? If I had to chose one or the other, here is where I would rather spend my life. . . . But in his heart he knew that to be false. He had said so himself, to Kunzite, weeks ago.

—o—

The streets of the Capital were crowded with people come from all around to celebrate the New Year. Red lanterns, the color for good fortune, were strung from rooftop to rooftop, lighting the avenues in which food vendors and merchants had set up shop—their hustling heard throughout the city; and street and professional performers entertained their patrons with balancing acts, swordplay, and vulgar morality plays; and the necessary and magnificent dragons, decorated in bright scarlet and green and gold paper scales, and pale pinks and blues, wove sideways and up and down through the throngs and the wonderful smells, rattling with bells and cymbals, leaving exclamations of awe and amusement in their wake. Even the looks on their grotesque faces with bared teeth reflected the joyous mood that would last the whole night and week through, until the lion chased the golden ball of the sun in a ceremony for the Prince of Earth to mark an auspicious beginning for the year.

Even then one wondered if the elation on the people's faces would disappate so soon. The mood in the streets spoke of a tangible difference this year, a reason to celebrate that only arose in a millenium. The shrines that had been set up around the borders of the Forbidden City just for the week and the masses that surrounded each one before moving on to pay homage to the next, spoke of it. Four statues of the gods of old, in this time become saints and disciples of Buddha, who had returned to guide the Middle Kingdom into a new era. Jikoku-ten, with sword and ossuary in hand, protected the East, while Komoku-ten guarded the West holding a spear in one hand, the sheath of his sword in the other. Red-faced Zocho-ten stood at the southern wall bearing a shield and with an evil spirit trampled underfoot. Protecting the North was Bishamon-ten, once worshipped as one of the more powerful gods, now a servant and general to the Truth and to the Prince who protected it. A sceptre of power and pagoda were in his hands. Each was dressed in armor, gold from head to foot except for their painted faces and ornaments, and was crowned with a halo of fire, seeming caught in a celestial wind that only they could feel.

Flowers were heaped in piles before these shrines. Pilgrims bought incense at the tables in the streets and lit it in bundles to leave for the images of those saints. When they prayed to them for the kingdom's prosperity or their own, their thoughts were with the real young men they represented, who they knew to be within the walls of the Forbidden City with their Prince. In their hearts they hoped for a chance to see the real _shitennou_ sometime during the festivities. One glance would be a treasure for a lifetime.

Already they had known Beryl, the incarnation of Benzaiten, who appeared each year in a procession with actors representing the bodhisattva of mercy. They adored her for her beauty and the stability her presence brought to the Middle Kingdom; and anyone could see how much she appreciated their admiration. Though it might have been only symbolic, in this way she was brought just a little closer to the Prince.

Zoisite wanted to immerse himself in the celebration, it was infectious. But the recognition that it was in part his presence in the Capital that was being celebrated made him feel like a split person. The responsibility his position brought made him conscious of everything around him, and he conducted himself with prudence and a stately elegance. His shirt was patterned with golden chrysanthemums, the symbol of the emperor's divine mandate, and of eternal youth and beauty. His light, embossed leather suit of armor and crown were only for show. The bright red ribbon on the breastplate, sown into intricate rosettes over each shoulder, matched that which tied his hair; and the gauzy layers of sleeves that feel down over his wrist guards were impractical at best, but created an image of the otherworldly when he gazed at his reflection in the mirror. His cheeks were even flushed from the combination of cold air and the heat of extra clothing. He was amazed at himself.

He had become Zocho-ten.

This possession, whether real or imagined, filled him with excitement and ennui for all things. It was as if, for this short time, they were caught in an ancient, timeless plane. It created a giddiness inside him his outer self could not betray. The strict vegetarian meals served them this past month, skillfully made to look and taste like meat, was to him intoxicating for the significance Boxy and the others paid it. The first plum blossoms of the year on branches cut and set in vases of water around them had the very smell of new life and perseverance. The younger ladies of the court played the biwa and danced in their long robes, laughing together and leaning on one another when they forgot which words they were supposed to sing. Watching them made him restless.

To his luck, he found Kunzite alone in the hallway on his way to somewhere. He was splendid in his own costume. The folds of fabric softened the straightness of his body and he had left his hair down. The kunzite drop that hung from his ear flashed like the momentary surprise in his bicolor eyes when Zoisite grabbed his arm and pulled him in one movement toward the shadow of a pillar. How quickly it changed to pleasure in the second before Zoisite kissed his lips. He could easily say now that it was chrysanthemums he preferred over maples or anything else. He wondered if Kunzite could feel how fast his heart was beating.

There was only a boyish grin on that young man's face when he pulled away all too soon. "Zoisite. I was looking for you," he said.

"You're lucky I found you first or it might have been a while," Zoisite said.

He was a little disappointed, however, when Kunzite took his arm and pulled him in the direction he had been heading before. It was gone in a moment when Kunzite told him excitedly, "Endymion wants to see you. And now is the best time, before the crowds gather or we're sought out again—"

"Endymion?"

Kunzite chuckled lightly at his surprise. "You haven't forgotten already, have you?" he said.

But it was not necessary. Already Zoisite knew what their meeting was about. He hardly heard Endymion's greeting, or saw the imperial robes that made their Prince look younger than his age. When Endymion approached him he fell immediately to one knee in gratitude. Not even sure if he was smiling or solemn, he looked down at the floor, not seeing it through his tears. For all his brashness in the face of authority, he was at this moment overcome with love for his Prince, and by Endymion's for him. He had known this moment would come, but never had he felt so deep in his heart the trust that young man had in him. Never had he felt so definitively that he belonged.

Endymion placed a hand on his shoulder. He kneeled down to Zoisite's level in order to give him a small lacquered tube the kind in which letters are sealed. His expression was so kind as he said: "This is an imperial mandate placing all the southern territories that belong to the Middle Kingdom under your jurisdiction as Emperor of the Southern Tributary Kingdom. Anyone who questions its authority is also questioning the Prince of Earth. Not that anyone need worry. Master Oblong and the others have been convinced by your work in Burma—" He glanced at Kunzite. "—and by our insistence, that they should have nothing but high hopes for the kingdoms under your leadership. Of course, I never had any doubts from the beginning. I'm only sorry it's taken so long to make everything official."

Zoisite grasped the document tight in his upturned hand. It was only a piece of paper, he knew, no matter how sacred some might believe the words on it to be. It wasn't that that made him so grateful. He was vindicated. That was something Endymion had no way of knowing, yet it was a service that could never be adequately repaid. What he had said about his destiny was to some extent true: with this Endymion handed him his life. "My lord . . ." he started, but could think of nothing appropriate to say.

Endymion's smile said he did not need to. "I've already made arrangements. Everything will be ready when you arrive in Bangkok."

"Thank you so much," Zoisite repeated with all his heart. He felt it would burst with gratitude.

—o—

_If I may be so bold as to say so, it was in that year that the Silver Millennium finally started for Earth—the year the four Heavenly Emperors came together in the Capital for the first time. You might think of us as an immature, gullible race, and I for my sake cannot help the cynicism that has been exacerbated by a lifetime in Zoisite's service. When I recall the night, however, what moves me is not the elegance of everything around us, nor the mystery of the annual ceremonies performed by the monks. Rather it is the recollection of how much the people loved the Prince and his kings at that time. Their presence filled them with such hope for the future._

_The five sat together upon thrones at the top of the stairs before the palace, dressed in the armor of the _shitennou _over their formal robes—before the courtyard where a thousand subjects had been gathered from all parts of the Middle Kingdom to pay tribute to their Prince, announced for the better part of the night by my teacher who knew well the traditions. Dignitaries and royalty and scholars, and religious men and soldiers . . . My master and the others suffered them all with gracious, impassive smiles worthy of the Buddha himself. Then fireworks rose above the palace walls, filling the sky with their endless colors and the air with their cacophonous music. In their light, it almost seemed with its brilliant red and gold streamers the idyllic Cloud-Dragon Hall of poets' fancy, and the five who sat before it the immortals themselves._

_For all the Earth's legends and romantic ruminations on the chrysanthemum wine, the drink of immortals, there is one thing I cannot dismiss as mere fancy; and you will be no stranger to my observation, being descended of the Planetary Kingdoms. Indeed I would not be surprised if you laughed at my bewilderment: The legend has it that the four emperors will live for five hundred years. And since that night they have hardly seemed to age at all, though almost a decade goes by._

—o—

Giant, brilliant dahlias and mums and peonies filled the sky with red and gold and green and a deafening roar, threatening to split the very air, fiery white streaks like lily stamen opening among them. There were sparkling tails of backwards shooting stars, aiming for heaven, and crackling red streamers that looked like they would touch the ground; and every now and then little zipping, whirling galaxies or the dull yellow lights of rockets that screamed like ghosts over the explosions. Everywhere was the smell of gunpowder and burnt ozone. No other smell, not even the aroma of the barbecue stands outside the courtyard walls, more perfectly represented the very essence of celebration.

As Bunbo stood apart from his master and the others gathered before the entrance to the palace, Boxy caught his eye and moved to join him, weaving through the crowd in his tall cap and vermilion monk's robes. Bunbo only hoped he did not draw attention to the two of them. An irrational shyness seized him that he might be recognized as someone connected so closely to one of the Prince's kings.

"This is your first time witnessing the New Year in the Capital," Boxy observed, to which the boy nodded. "In Lhasa there are those who consider themselves lucky to have the experience once."

"And I'm sure there are others who say that if you have seen one New Year's celebration you have seen them all."

"My, so cynical." Boxy smiled. "Are you not enjoying yourself?" he asked in a rhetorical manner. He seemed to be quite caught up himself, his genuine face somewhat flushed now that Bunbo chanced to study him.

"It isn't that," Bunbo said, suddenly embarrassed that Boxy had been partly correct.

"Sometimes I wonder if my master was not unlike you in his younger days," the man said. "When I look at you there is so little resemblance. Until you open your mouth, and the same haughtiness toward the world I remember of Master Square is there."

"I am not your Master Square," Bunbo told him. He was tired of hearing it, but he managed to keep the harshness out of his voice easily tonight. "That I am," he said, "is wishful thinking. Or your imagination."

"Perhaps. Perhaps, too, a sense of humor comes with old age," Boxy said wistfully, then rethought it. "Then again, I found more things amusing in my youth than I do now." He fell silent for a moment as if reminiscing his youth; although he was younger than he seemed to think he was. "When you're as old as Square was and nothing bothers you anymore— You'll see."

"Ah," was all Bunbo could think of to say. But wouldn't the culmination of decades of experience of loss and greed make one immune to humor? he thought. He could not say that aloud, however. For his follies, he liked the chela, and did not want to argue philosophical matters with him on this of all nights. (In fact, it was this night, though he had no words for it and had yet to learn of the man's discovery of the _shitennou_, that he wondered if Boxy might be in some way empathic.)

"In any case, it seems strange that _I_ should be wishing _you_ luck."

"For what?" said Bunbo, thinking he meant the New Year.

"For your journey," said Boxy. "I can only imagine the difficulty of leaving the Capital for a foreign place, so soon after you've left your father's home as well. However, I have a sense you are like I was when I was young, only at home when you had nowhere to settle down." At Bunbo's lack of surprise he added, "I assume Master Zoisite already told you."

"He told me nothing," said Bunbo, not without a small pang of resentment.

"But you knew."

Somehow he had. In some small way, he had felt less and less welcome over the past few weeks, though not in any way that might have been deemed hostile. That had been enough. However, to admit it would be to give Boxy more leverage in his argument.

"Siam can be a hard place for a boy whose heart is bent on learning to grow up. In place of the Sciences and Classics you may learn more about men than you care to know," said Boxy. "That is why I wanted to wish you well. You are truly a kind-hearted person," he said as he pushed a red paper envelope into Bunbo's hand.

Bunbo started, and tried to refuse it. "I can't accept anything of his—" he began, thinking it was another one of Boxy's ploys, but Boxy waved his excuse away.

"It's only money," he said. "For luck."

* * *

End of Part Four


	6. Intermission

Intermission

_We lived in the capital of the Southern Tributary Kingdom for several years after that. The palace was gaudy, and like a mixture of the styles of the other kingdoms. Its eaves were huge and curved like the Japanese, intricate as the Chinese, and its whole being light and shining like the domes and pillars of Indian temples. Sharp gold flames topped the white halls, and soaring geometric embellishments and verdant courtyards and planters were everywhere they could be made to fit, bringing to mind images of the legendary hanging gardens of Babylon._

__

The various princes and princesses that had once allied with Zoisite as a king of a piece of Burma were happy to be brought under his benevolent leadership. If any disliked the loss of complete autonomy that political assimilation brings, the benefits of it quieted them. Being under the cloak of the Middle Kingdom meant prosperity, plain and simple. Trade improved with the arrival of more Middle Kingdom airships, as did crop quality and production with the technological innovation and support of the Chinese government. The South prospered as it had never before.

So it was Zoisite earned the name the Elephant King. Artists preferred to portray him sitting on a throne graced by stark white tusks, or riding into battle on one of the beasts—against whom I always wondered; there was little or no war during that time, but it was explained to me that such images were traditionally significant. In much of the Middle Kingdom, elephants are a symbol of good luck, benevolence and prosperity, especially the so-called white elephant—which, I am sad to say, Princess, is a misnomer. They are also just as destructive as man and known for quick tempers and excellent memories. Thus the people thought it appropriate that red-faced Zocho-ten be associated with the pink-faced Ganesha that Hindus and Muslims both worshiped in one form or another. But to us, it just seemed Jadeite's pet name had stuck. Zoisite found no end to the enjoyment of cursing him for it.

_It was during that time that the Middle Kingdom was witness to a cosmic event that would change our lives forever._

—o—

On this day Zoisite entertained the ministries of agriculture and trade in his audience room. Someone was always here to see him, whether hard-working officials like these or members of the royal families of his provinces come to bargain legislation or protection, or a favorable marriage through his connections to the Middle Kingdom court. He had gained a reputation for trustworthiness by his character and frankness of discussion; whether he came through on his promises was a less important matter. He was, after all, the regional emperor, king, and Sultan of the sultans whose very hand was something to be treated with reverence.

His dress was a sampling of the scope of his authority. Thai trousers that hung short of the ankles, an Arab prince's embroidered jacket, his wavy hair in an Apollonian style. In this room, too, were rugs like minature gardens imported from the far West, and Chinese rosewood chairs sat along side cushion seats. Everything around him was extravagant, and around him it appeared like an organic thing, a second skin. Despite it, he had the solemn and thoughtful disposition of a Confucian scholar for whatever concerns were brought before him.

"The prince of Bali begs you to take his island into careful consideration," one of the ministers gathered before him said when it was his turn to speak. "There is growing concern among the peasants for their crops."

"Have the rains not come regularly?" Zoisite asked, replacing the report in his hand with that which the minister's companion presented him.

"Yes, my lord, more regularly than one could ask for. And the year's crops remain abundant. However, with the Middle Kingdom's demand of exports, there is less and less for the local population every year, even though production has increased. They expect more from us in the Capital in exchange for the technologies they have provided; but compared to our mainland neighbors we receive considerably less for our efforts."

"It's true," said another whose turn had not yet come. "Not only Bali but Java and her neighbors have also been discouraged to see their resources go to the Middle Kingdom for next to nothing. They use our crop to feed their own people, meanwhile selling their own surplus to spacemen at more than double the price."

"They have been doing this for decades before I was put in charge of the region," Zoisite told them. "Why come to me with this complaint now? It can't be that you've just learned of the difference between what they pay you and what they pay, for example, India or even the Malay peninsula. That is common knowledge."

"It was not as though we could do anything about it then—"

"Only you can now that you are able to claim yourselves part of the Middle Kingdom, now that you can hide behind me." Zoisite smiled slightly.

The ministers from the south were silent for a moment. "But," said one, with somewhat less confidence than before, "it is still exploitation."

It was in effect an admission of their insecurity regarding, or perhaps more accurately their inability to confront the Middle Kingdom head-on. Zoisite put the papers aside and stood, startling the uncertain ministers already intimidated by his stern manner for a moment when he began to pace among them. "You're correct," he said pointedly to one of the men. "It isn't just that the Middle Kingdom shortchange you financially while they profit from their close relationship with the Moon Kingdom. It is a matter of honor. So what are you going to do about it? You have bureaucrats in the Prince's service from your territories, don't you?"

"Yes, but they are few and only passed the imperial exams within the last decade."

"Then they are going to waste," said Zoisite. His gaze passed over the southern delegations like it would over generals, though they were simple scientist-priests and bureaucrats from the country, dressed in white jackets and sarong. "They should be pulled out of the Capital."

"Pardon, my lord, but maybe they have not yet had occasion to lobby for fairer prices."

"It would do no good. The old Capital officers will not consider change lightly, even less when it comes at their own expense. Better they return to their countries and approach the Moon Kingdom directly."

The ministers were surprised by his response. "But will the spacemen listen?"

"Your crop is just as good, isn't it? Why shouldn't they want to do business with you?" With his hands on his hips in a haughty gesture, it seemed he was speaking of more than merely resources. One who knew him better would have caught the tone in his voice like one desiring the righting of a personal wrong. "You are forgetting your allies in the Moon Kingdom," he said, leaving them to wonder that they had any to begin with. "With my name behind the proposal and your consistency, Prince Endymion will have no choice but to listen."

A low chatter over whether it could work as he said went up among those delegations; and Zoisite turned briefly to Bunbo who sat observing the proceedings on the sidelines. They exchanged a smile, but it was quick to vanish on the boy's lips as a troubled look clouded his eyes. By now Zoisite knew him well enough to gather something was about to happen. He followed the boy's frozen stare to the doorway, where soon enough a officer of his own court rushed into the room.

His dark face had gone pale, and his movements seemed wild and shaky, the movements of a frightened man, as he tried to make up for his interruption. "Lord Zoisite, excuse me!" he panted between heavy breaths. "But you must come quick! It's terrible . . . and amazing. . . . It came out of nowhere, just like a comet but, but . . . impossible. Brighter than the sun!"

"What is?" Zoisite asked him.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Nobody knows! A . . . a fire—"

"In the palace?"

"No. In the sky! Please . . ." The man swallowed, visibly shaken; and spurred by curiosity as much as concern Zoisite followed him at a jog to the courtyard outside. When they were in the open, the man stopped and looked up. Zoisite followed suit, shielding his eyes against the midday sun.

In the otherwise spotless blue of the Siamese sky sat an impossible second sun. It was the size of the moon when seen in the day, and soaked up the blue color in a similar manner, but was much brighter than the moon could ever be competing with the sun. A brilliant spot of light like the explosion of a firecracker frozen in time hung in the afternoon sky, shining white in its center, with tendrils faintly green and violet reaching out from its center without any precise pattern, swirling around the point in lopsided fashion. It was a gorgeous site at first glance; but anyone would recognize as the officer had that this was no normal occurrence. Zoisite had studied the stars—nowhere near as much as Nephrite, it was true, but enough to know something such as this had never been described in any common texts. No words would come to his mind capable of describing it. A chill ran down his spine, one spurred by something more than just the sight of the anomaly. And he wondered at the quiet that had descended on the palace. Had no one else seen it yet, or were they merely as aghast and incapable of speech as he? Behind him, he heard the gasp of the visiting ministers who had followed him into the courtyard. A large part of the Java delegation suddenly fell to their knees at the sight and muttered prayers to the God of his childhood. The others could only stare, trembling, as if to do so they risked being struck down.

In either case, the words that fell from their lips were not those of men about to die, but the mumblings of those confronted with a thing for which there was no existing comparison or reference.

"I watched it grow." The officer beside him seemed to have regained his capacity for language. His voice was distant as he said, "It was just a small flash of light in the morning. I thought it must have been a spaceship, reflecting the sunlight, but it never moved. Then . . . Then it just opened. Like a flower."

"Incredible," Zoisite heard himself say. Vaguely the thought pressed him, I must speak with Nephrite immediately. Yet he could not tear his eyes away. Only Bunbo could be moved to lower his face and look questioningly toward his master. Zoisite felt a smile creep slowly onto his lips and he said to no one, "What is it?"

"I thought you would be able to tell us," said the officer.

"Why? I am not an astronomer."

"But you must know. You must have some idea," the officer implored him, and it seemed he spoke for them all. Real fear gripped his pleas, the fear of the unknown that was so crucial to religion. "Please, Lord Zoisite, tell us what it is!"

—o—

"Can you believe it? The people are reverting to the old myth about dragons. I can understand they are scared out of their wits—even I am—but dragons!" Though Master Oval scoffed, there was a nervous twitch of his mouth betraying that even he feared something of the sort. He paced the room, his hands fidgeted behind his back. Kite shook his head at his fellow officer's transparency, his lack of resolve. Endymion sat as though he barely heard or saw him. Outside he was calm, as he tried to be to set the others at ease, but in his heart he was just as worried for those people.

"They probably think the end of the world is coming," he said somberly.

Oval started. "Don't even joke about such things, my lord! I felt I would nearly die of fright when I saw that thing outside my window. Like a firecracker, but no sound. And it remains in the sky just the same all this time. It is not natural! How many people will die in actuality when you tell them this is the end of the world?"

Endymion fixed him a hard stare. Officers must control themselves, he reminded him silently. "I didn't say it was the end of the world," he said aloud. "For all we know it may be nothing at all."

"But how will we know for certain?" asked Oblong, who was as usual levelheaded.

"Wait until my generals arrive," said Endymion, but he was well aware his answer assured no one.

Oval only grumbled more. "I wish we had Square here. He would know what to make of this, if he were alive. Instead we must depend on that chela," he said bitterly, despite Boxy's presence in the chamber, "who only seems to be able to read a thing when he wants to. Governor Prism refuses to return from Space, Trapezoid is silent. And your generals—no more than children! What do they know about the workings of the Heavens?" He turned to Endymion. "Sir, if we only had Frustum here—"

"He would not be able to tell you much," came a voice from the door. It was Kunzite, with Nephrite following close behind with books and scrolls balanced precariously on his arms. Endymion rushed to help him. "Master Frustum said himself there are two generals who have surpassed even his knowledge of science and mathematics," said Kunzite. His smile of pride and satisfaction told he had heard the professor's words himself and Master Oval could say nothing. At Endymion's unspoken question, he added: "We should have contacted Zoisite by now."

On that cue, the servant manning the new wall-mounted device turned it on, and Zoisite appeared to them, a couple of pages of notes and some maps spread out before him. Seeing everyone was present who needed to be, Endymion asked eagerly: "Well? What did you discover?" as he spread his own books out on dining tables.

"The anomaly is a nova," Zoisite announced.

"That is, a massive star which has exploded," Nephrite added when the Prince looked at him strangely. "It is not a very common occurrence—or perhaps is more than we think but has not been noticeable before. We found very few records of similar events being witnessed in the past, and none were on such a large scale. Or so close to us."

"But what does all this mean?" asked Oblong, and Oval quickly interjected: "Is it dangerous?"

"The violent death of a sun," Zoisite said to Oblong, meeting his eyes across the distance and strewn records. "Passing through the Hen constellation. The distance we calculated at about fifteen hundred to two thousand light years: it is too far away to be of any damage to our system."

"How can you be so sure of that?" asked Oval, stepping into his view. It was clear to Zoisite the man was afraid of superstitions. The mere suggestion that the gods were sending a warning of destruction would have him trembling in the knees. Zoisite smiled. "'I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,'" he spoke under his breath.

The effect was as desired: Oval looked up in shock. "Bhagavad Gita," said Nephrite. There was a scowl on his face that was at once amused at and taking exception to Zoisite's having beaten him in quoting ancient scripture.

"I assure you," Zoisite clarified, "though it seems sudden, the explosion occurred thousands of years ago and the light is only now reaching us. Think of it as a photograph developing. The actual event is long over and done with. How _could_ it harm us?"

"Excuse me," Nephrite interjected—and not very politely, Zoisite noted. "There _is_ more to this than a mere photograph developing."

"Is there?"

Nephrite ignored his disguised sarcasm. "I believe Master Oval was referring to the metaphysical meanings of the occurrence. There is that side of things to consider, Zoisite. I haven't been able to compare our observations and calculations extensively with the ancient notes in such short time," he said as his gaze swept over the papers on the table. "I am sure when I do, however, that they will match what I've felt all along: that this is not an omen of good fortune."

"Why not?" Zoisite and Endymion asked simultaneously, the latter out of curiosity, the former indignant.

Nephrite shrugged nonchalantly. "The death of a sun? Why, the very thing suggests ill will to come, misfortune, perhaps at the hands of the Moon Kingdom or one of its allies."

"They are our allies as well," Oblong cautioned him.

"I am not suggesting we don't continue to trust them. However we cannot ignore that the omen came from space; and for years the people have commented on the changes in our very way of living, how the Moon injects its culture into our own like a virus. It is only because of their invention," he said, pointing at his comrade's image, "that we are able to benefit from Zoisite's opinion immediately, further evidence of our dependence. But I digress. This event merely suggests _something_ will result from this, but I cannot say now what or why. On top of that, the northern hordes are becoming stronger—"

"Blind speculation," Zoisite interrupted. He looked to the Prince. "Sir, the idea that a chance event like this—for all we know, perfectly common in Nature—would in some way govern every move made by mortal man that is to happen between now and—and who knows when, is ridiculous."

"It is not a matter to be taken lightly, sir," Nephrite said, clenching his teeth to keep from being overcome by personal offense. "History has proven that the events of the Heavens have a very real effect on the rise and fall of nations. On the lives of princes! Sir, I cannot allow the observatory—which is under _my_ jurisdiction, may I remind you—" This he said with a hard look at Zoisite; "—to sit idly by without an investigation into the full bearing of such an extraordinary event. I shall bring the lamas into it as well, of course, for their opinions on the matter are essential. Whether you believe what they have to say or not, you _must_ listen. It could mean your own life, Endymion."

Oval gasped. "Do you realize what you're saying?" he fumed. "You should threaten the Prince of Earth outright! This is an offense punishable by death!"

"Nonsense," said Oblong. "No one is going to execute the Prince's top officers—nor banish them neither for telling the truth. . . . If that is the truth."

"If," Zoisite repeated, adding weight to the word. "And if it isn't, and the people hear such 'prophecies' of the fall of the Middle Kingdom, why, the kingdom may very well erupt into chaos of its own volition. It would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. At very least, people will live in fear, some may die of it, and others will wonder with shame why the gods have forsaken our Prince. These are terrible consequences to suffer for a mistake, sir."

Nephrite was about to open his mouth in protest when Kunzite spoke. "He has a point, Endymion," he said calmly. "Whatever the texts end up saying about this, if the people knew the anomaly meant something terrible—as they already suspect—the result would be catastrophic. Doubtless some have already ended their own lives out of fear. It would be unwise to add to that with prophecies of any kind, and cause chaos in the streets, or at worst a collapse of economy or defenses. The kingdom's reach is so vast now, if such a thing—far-fetched though it may seem—if it were to happen . . ." He stopped to let his words sink in. It was a typical middle-ground response. They all saw the sense in it, and no one could argue.

Endymion nodded. "I agree," he said, deep in thought as he said so. "It is best we keep things in confidence for now. Nephrite, continue your investigation. I want to hear the conclusion you come to—_even_ if it is negative," he added with a hard look at Oval. Then to Zoisite: "Of course, it will be treated as only a possibility to be wary of, not fact. Has Jadeite been notified?"

"He has," said Kunzite. "He awaits your orders."

"Then tell him to send a letter of reassurance to our troops on the northern front. I don't want them to worry so far away from home. I'm trusting that persuasive style of his." Kunzite bowed, a small smile on his lips testament to his satisfaction with Endymion's decision, and a barely noticeable wink aimed at Zoisite as he turned to leave to show his agreement.

"And Kunzite—"

"Sir?"

"I think you and I should write a decree, and have it sent to and read in all parts of the Capital. We must assure the people that we are not bothered by this, and that everything will continue to run as smoothly as ever."

Kunzite acknowledged his burden with a solemn nod. It was then that Oblong, smoothing his long beard, asked in a far-off voice: "I wonder, my young lords, what exactly causes a star to explode so violently? It must take tremendous power, but what could be capable of that?" Endymion nodded his assent, and turned eagerly to the two emperors.

Nephrite looked over at Zoisite, who reluctantly shrugged. "Heaven only knows."

* * *

End of Intermission


	7. Part Five

Part Five

The present, in the year 3704 (1006 C.E.)—

It was at that hour of twilight that the sky overhead is black and glittering with stars, the horizon a soft blue green with what remained of the sunlight bleeding faintly purple into the tenuous clouds that hovered there. And with the night silence descended over the palace. There was no droning horn, no chants to signal the sunset as one might hear if he passed a Buddhist temple at this time of day; no song of the muezzins, calling the Muslim people to evening prayer, reached this far. The only sound beside the hush of the wind was a single peacock crying somewhere within the walls. It was trying, that that plaintive sound should be the only thing that dared bring the day to a close. Was it still possible for one to read into it finality and comfort?

As the call came to him in his room, Zoisite found himself contemplating prayer, like one contemplates suicide. But he did not know how after ten years. Nor did he feel the remorse for sin that usually drives men. He had wanted too badly to kill the man who had destroyed his family; this act of vengeance so long overdue had merely been a scene in the script of his destiny. No need to thank God or ask his forgiveness. Yet, that family seemed so distant, and he felt he had no right to call it his own anymore. After all, they belonged to a boy named Shamim who had died with them a decade ago. What remained was this truth: he had killed a man. He had felt the life leave him, running over his bare hands. The nausea brought on by the sight of so much blood had been exciting.

Now the exhilaration of the act was gone. So was the sickening feeling in his gut, but still something pulled at him. He felt sated, but not for the reasons he should have. And he did not understand why.

Soon the waning gibbous moon rose. The nova was gone, resting on the other side of the Earth. The city slept. But sleep did not come easy for a man with a troubled conscience.

He thought of Bunbo, asleep in the next room. He was only fifteen; yet, if he were bothered at all by his master's violence he showed no sign. In his reserved way, the boy had offered water, rest, any distraction that would make his master feel better. He was not afraid, and said with wisdom beyond his years that what happened was unavoidable in the great scheme over which Fate presided. He justified the amir's death far easier than Zoisite, and it was something the emperor of the southern kingdom envied, for that was what he had tried to do since his one weakness that one night.

I.Sunset

He dreamed he was a boy again, back in his palace in Araby, the way it was when his father was still alive. He was playing in the gardens, looking into the pool where a big black beetle was drowning. Already a few of his fellows' carcasses littered the bottom, and this one was struggling to reach the surface. It was not of the swimming variety, so its struggling was quite in vain. He watched it for a while in fascination, then reached into the pool. He cupped his hand under the insect, and it almost drifted out of his reach, but he was able to lift it out of the water.

He set it on the stone tiles, where it moved in place trying to reorient itself while its limbs were dripping wet; but the sun was at its zenith and did not show the mercy the boy had. It dried the beetle's back in no time, but as the insect tried to crawl away it moved sluggishly, each step a huge effort. He urged it on—he had saved it from the water; it had to save itself from the heat—but it dragged its limbs as though they became heavier with each step.

He looked up to see his mother. Her light-gold hair and peridot-like eyes were more brilliant than in his memories, even as they were darkened by shadow behind her veil. Her face was uncovered, but for some reason the features appeared nebulous to him, escaping his gaze. He did know it when she smiled and said his name, and asked what he was doing as she knelt down beside him. And he tried to explain how he had saved the beetle from drowning, but that it was not even grateful enough to move out of the sun.

His mother's smile grew grave, and she took out a book he had not seen before. She opened it to a page, and showed him the picture on it. What stared back at him was an awesome being, half human, half devil and sexless, with too many arms to distinguish and surrounded by robes that were rustled by an impossible wind. It had a face shriveled like a mummy that was both hideous and holy, too hideous and holy for an ordinary man to be worthy of gazing upon if it were not simply a painting. The writing around it was completely foreign to him.

"This is Mercy," his mother said. Her voice was the sweetest water to a thirst he had forgotten he had. "She is the greatest force of Love on Earth, the Love of God for his creations, but she can be just as cruel as beautiful. Why do you think so many songs speak of the Love of God? It is the most beautiful thing, so beautiful it pains the heart. Men stretch out their necks in submission to the Hand of God, because they trust that his Mercy will be greater and more just than anything else could be in this tangible world that brings nothing but suffering." She looked distracted for a brief moment. "You saved the beetle from drowning, and that was a kind thing to do. But because of it, its fate is worse; its death would be slow and painful."

He felt his eyes water at her harsh words. It was never his intention to see the creature suffer, quite the opposite; but knowing that he had nonetheless caused a guilty pain to blossom in his chest.

And then she stepped on it.

Tears blurred his vision and tickled his face. Why, mother? Why, he wondered, after the effort to save the insect's life must it be taken so quickly and effortlessly? His mother began to answer his silent question, but he never heard her reply. Through the tears and the reflected sunlight he vaguely saw her shoe, under the soft leather sole of which lay the dead beetle. How swift and indifferent God's mercy was. He felt a shiver despite the midday sun.

—o—

Zoisite woke suddenly. He lay still as a corpse but for the movement of his eyes. Something was wrong, but he could not place what it was. It was too quiet in his quarters, that much he knew. Yet in his dream he swore he had heard a noise too sudden and too near to be the cry of peacocks.

When his keen senses had assured him there was no one else in the room, he sat up. He dressed quickly in trousers and a long-sleeved jacket, and took a thin Middle Kingdom sword from its stand on a table near his books, leaving the scabbard behind. His footsteps made no sound on the stone floors, the result of years of diligent study of the martial arts. Keeping his back to the walls, he sneaked into the hallway in the direction he surmised the sound had come from.

He rounded the corner, sword at the ready—and stopped. Relief flooded him at the sight of Bunbo, breathing hard through his open mouth and hands shaking in nervousness, face pale. At his feet, as Zoisite had expected, was one he recognized as the amir's man, his face turned toward Zoisite as he lay sprawled on his stomach. His expression of surprise was frozen in death, and blood had begun to pool around his head, sprung from where the point of a silver compass had penetrated the jugular.

"Zoisite, sir . . ." the boy said quietly. "He was going to kill you. . . ."

He looked as though he would cry. Whether in abject relief or horror, his look made Zoisite smile. "And thanks to you he failed."

The reaction was not what he would have liked. Bunbo appeared even more repulsed at his gratitude, forgiving though it was. He swallowed, and took a step back from the corpse. "But I—" he stuttered.

"You did what you had to," Zoisite assured him.

He did not expect his words to be a comfort. It was the first life Bunbo had taken. He knew himself what miles lay between that and merely watching a man die. What precious covenants were broken.

Crouching down beside the body, Zoisite took up the curved knife that was held loosely in the lifeless hand. He handed the boy his own sword, knowing he would not accept anything off the dead man's body, not even the compass that was worth more than should be easily discarded. "There will be more of them. I don't suppose they'll be satisfied until they've avenged their master," he explained to Bunbo, then muttered to himself: "The blame lies with them if they fail to accept that the vengeance is mine."

Bunbo hesitated. "Please— I can't—"

"Take it, Bunbo, if only for your own protection."

Strengthening his resolve, there was only a slight jitter when the boy accepted the weapon.

They tread quickly and silently to the main entrance of the living quarters. Standing still behind the thick pillars, Zoisite recognized their Arabic. Three men occupied the foyer, their backs to him and the boy, talking of returning home, and what they should do now that their leader was dead. He could practically feel the familiar tone of one's suspicion toward his fellow man in each voice, like it were a physical thing seeping cold through the back of his clothing.

One glance told him all he needed to know: the lack of the guard's presence was explained by the prone bodies on the marble. The amir's men had been escorted back to their ship in the port that evening, but Zoisite had known to expect some attempt at retaliation for that day's atrocity. He had ordered the guard to be cautious of just such a thing, but either they had not believed him or the warning had been inadequate. In either case, he had no doubt a similar fate must have met other parties as well.

Bunbo met his eyes. It was only natural he be curious, their language being foreign to him. Zoisite was about to give him a sign of reassurance when one of the men said, "I wonder what's taking Naji so long. How hard can it be to slit the little shit's throat?"

"Maybe he ran into some resistance," said another.

There was strained laughter. "Hardly likely, the way he trains his guards. I'm going to take a look."

Hearing footsteps, Zoisite braced himself against the pillar and felt Bunbo do the same. A moment later, the man passed into the dark hallway before them, and their presence went unnoticed in the shadows. For a second, at least. Zoisite wasted no time in taking him out, breaking his large nose hard with the palm of his hand and sending bone fragments up into the man's brain.

The loud crack would have alerted the others. Following his example, Bunbo dashed into the foyer, raised the sword's blade to the second man's shoulder, and sliced down across the side of his neck. The man put his hand to the wound automatically, trying to staunch the pain and the flow of blood even as he collapsed to one knee. Both assailant and victim exchanged looks of disbelief.

The third man saw his mates go down and turned to run. Bunbo shouted out a warning, but Zoisite had already seen him move. He threw the curved dagger, striking the man solidly in the back. He went down, rolling in pain, and allowing Zoisite to catch up with him. He rolled the man onto his back, placing a foot on the shoulder under which the blade was buried and shifted his weight onto it. The man groaned. "I guess this little shit isn't so easy to kill after all," Zoisite said.

Bunbo checked the guards for pulses the way his father had instructed him. They were bloody, but at least one seemed to still be breathing.

"Where are the rest of you?" Zoisite asked the man pointedly in his own language, but the man did not answer, either out of defiance or injury. In any case, Bunbo answered for him, pointing: "They're in the street."

That satisfied Zoisite. Ignoring the groaning man, he picked up a fallen scimitar, hefting it in his hand. "Get the guard, Bunbo," he told the boy. Then to the obvious questions in his wide eyes, added, "Don't worry: I'm more than capable of holding my own until then. But I won't wait around. I started this; I have to finish it myself."

They parted ways, down the narrow streets that ran between the separate buildings. There was no room for a confrontation here. No, Zoisite knew they would be waiting somewhere more open, and with more places to hide than these blank, white walls. He glanced up. Would it have been too much to ask for this night to have fallen on a new moon? The gibbous moon lit everything clearly around him, the green and copper roofs and gold flame-tipped ridges, and the few clouds that were too thin to block its light even if they passed before its face. At least it would tell him where his opponent was.

He found the amir's men gathered in a courtyard surrounded by tall, window-less walls. He walked out into the open driven by adrenaline, scimitar hanging from his left hand, a clear target in the pale light; and he called out to them: "Were you waiting long?"

The men started, hands going to their arms. "What? He should be dead!" one said in disbelief.

Zoisite smiled. "If that were the goal," he said lightly, "you should have sent more than one man to do the job."

"No matter," said another, an older gentleman with a scarred face that Zoisite otherwise recognized from the distant past. A distasteful smirk tugged at the corner of his own mouth. "We'll finish him off now, before any guard can come to his rescue. Naji may have been incompetent, but he can't take on all of us alone."

A good twenty paces remaining between them, Zoisite stopped, hefting the sword onto his shoulder. "You sound so confident, Uthman, but I think you have it backwards. It's a shame. Here I was even gracious enough to let you and your men return home with your lives. _You_ would have even taken over Hashim's office. But I take it you don't value those things that much after all? Your actions leave me no choice but to rescind that offer."

"Impudent devil," Uthman growled, "only ending your filthy life will bring justice for Amir Hashim's soul."

"Come, now—you of all people should know that death was merciful compared to what that godless swine deserved for all his crimes."

"It's you who deserves to die."

Zoisite spread his arms in a gesture of invitation. "If that's true then may God strike me down right here."

Something flashed in the corner of his eye. He glanced without moving toward the rooftop where he had thought he had seen it, but there was nothing. One of the amir's men? Perhaps he should have been worried.

"Kill him," Uthman ordered, and Zoisite forced whatever it was from his mind as a dozen men unsheathed their swords and charged him.

He raised his own sword at the last moment as the first few surrounded him. The ring of steel on steel reverberated across the courtyard. Undaunted, the closest men counter-parried, while their comrades attempted to take Zoisite from behind. Forcing the blades of two above their heads, Zoisite riposted before they could react with a cut across their abdomens. They fell just as he spun to dodge a stab in the back, and more rushed forward to take their places. It was no good: facing attack from all sides, he only had time to defend himself, and the longer he stayed the center of the circle the more he pushed his luck.

He grabbed one man by his sword arm, turned, and flipped him over his shoulder at his comrades. Zoisite snatched the scimitar from his loosening hand in the process, ducked the sloppy attempt of another to decapitate him, and tripped the man's feet out from underneath him. He twirled the second sword in his fingers, finding a comfortable grip. It much easier utilizing them both to slowly whittle away their numbers.

At last he managed to break temporarily away from them, just long enough to catch his breath, when something shot past his right shoulder. A stinging pain followed a moment later. But Zoisite resisted tending to the wound, however bad it may be. He ran his blade through the throat of a man bearing down on him, and hissed with the effort.

In that brief moment, he looked up. Archers, balancing on the roof, and one of them had a fresh arrow drawn back, pointed straight at him.

Then suddenly the man crumpled and plummeted toward the stone tiles, his shot going wild into the air as he took an arrow himself. Zoisite followed the line of fire to the other shooter—but he was dressed no differently from the rest of the amir's men. It hardly seemed possible he should have a supporter among their number; but straining to see the man's face rewarded him with nothing, as it was covered from the bridge of his nose down. Still, there was something vaguely familiar about him as he stood there framed by the moonlight.

Uthman had also spotted him. There was a haughtiness in the poise of the enemy shooter, deceptively dressed in an Arab's clothing, something in his eyes as their gazes met that Uthman loathed with a religious passion. "Bring him down!" he shouted, pointing at the stranger. "I don't care how!" And saying so, he drew his own sword, turning his attention to his real enemy. He would not let the amir's murderer live.

Meanwhile, Zoisite deflected another blow and retreated a step. The shooter's arrow had only nicked his arm, and he ignored the pain of such a small wound, scimitar flashing vigorously as ever before him. Then he felt something fall quietly to the stone tiles behind. Another assassin, he thought, spinning and raising his sword to slash the newcomer through from shoulder to hip.

It was stopped before it could make contact however.

He started. His blade was caught skillfully between a pair of bare hands; and recognizing the face behind them, he was relieved it had been. "Careful where you're swinging that thing," the other said.

"Jadeite?"

Jadeite smiled at his disbelief. But there was no time for tender reunions. Drawing his own short sword from its sheath, Jadeite rushed at an attacker and plunged it deep into his side, while Zoisite turned to take care of a man at their other flank. "Sorry to steal some of your glory," Jadeite said lightly through a grunt. "Bet you weren't expecting to see us so soon."

The feeling of his comrade as they stood back-to-back in combat brought a new rush of adrenaline through Zoisite's veins. Though he wondered at Jadeite's choice of 'us,' he riposted: "What took you so long?"

With a shrug, Jadeite pushed away to engage the enemy.

And Zoisite turned to face his opponent—only to see Uthman's gaze meeting his on the other side of their clashing blades. The sadistic ill intent in his eyes sent a brief shiver down Zoisite's spine. "Enough of this nonsense," the man growled. "You're mine, Shamim."

Zoisite grunted as Uthman's strength forced their swords back toward him. "Nonsense? If your men's sacrifices are nonsense, then you only have your own foolishness to blame," he countered, "for continuing to push my hospitality in this way."

Uthman snorted.

"Hospitality? Is that what you heathens call murdering the man who cared for you for seven years?"

He swung his sword hard, and Zoisite sidestepped as he blocked, wielding the scimitar in his left hand. "Don't deceive yourself, Uthman," he said. "You know what he was like. You know he wasn't the saint he made himself out to be. Now that he's dead, there's no need to continue supporting him."

"Do you think I can leave now?" The man's attacks were vicious, focused on the kill. "Do you think I could hold myself with honor to return having done nothing? No, Hashim was no saint. But he knew what _you_ were from the start: a devil—_that should never have been allowed to live!_"

And in a fit of rage, Uthman bore down on him with everything left in him. The suddenness of his attack took Zoisite by surprise. He started—and Uthman stumbled backwards, struggling to remain on his feet as something invisible and immaterial seemed to slam into his blade full force. It was his own energy going into the attack reflected back at him, a technique Zoisite had had drilled into him and had used unwittingly on instinct.

But Uthman did not know that. To him it was only confirmation: only something inhuman could repel an attacker in such a way. He could only stare, and try to back away, as Zoisite rushed into the opening he left and ran him through, side to side. He arched backwards in a spasm of pain, then collapsed on the courtyard tiles, dead.

Zoisite let the sword go with him. A quick glance around told him there was no immediate need for it. Between he and Jadeite and the mysterious shooter the courtyard was littered with prone bodies. Those who still stood lost their desire to fight with Uthman. He closed his eyes for a moment in the meantime, catching his breath. His uncle's second-in-command had sought to rattle him with those last words, but he was unsuccessful. Still, Zoisite's limbs trembled slightly after the battle with a tension that was not unpleasant.

Bunbo arrived shortly with the guard. They had orders to execute what remained of the amir's party, though they did not need Zoisite's reassurance it was an honorable end to put their doubts at ease. It was the least they could do to repay their inability to protect their emperor that night. In truth, half of them seemed in awe that their master had defended himself from more than a dozen armed men nearly single-handedly and received only a scratch in return. The rest were in awe that Endymion, the Prince of Earth, stood among them like a fellow soldier when Jadeite revealed the mysterious archer's identity.

"My lord, you could have told me you were coming," Zoisite said.

Endymion tugged the cloth away from his face and removed the Arab head covering, running a hand through his black hair as was his habit. "Why? So you could tidy up? I didn't want to ruin the surprise," he said, blue eyes shining. "Besides, you could have told Jadeite you were in trouble."

Zoisite exchanged a look with the man in question. "It was a personal matter, none of the Middle Kingdom's concern. I thought I made that clear."

"You made it clear it was urgent," Jadeite said. "That could have meant anything."

Zoisite ignored the comment. "Captain," he barked to one of his men. "Send a party down to the amir's ship. If there's anyone left, I want him brought here to me. Make it clear I have no intention of killing him. I will have a message prepared for him to take home, or for the crew if there is no one else left to carry it."

"Please, leave the letter to me," said Bunbo as the captain of the guard affirmed his orders.

With a smile of appreciation, Zoisite nodded to the boy, having the utmost confidence in his eloquence.

"Sir," he said to Endymion, "I can't assure you enough this was an isolated incident that will never happen again. I have no desire to start a war with the west—"

"And we have no right to pry," Endymion cut him off, "so I won't ask you what this was all about." Even so, the familiar spark of curiosity burned in his stare. "My advisers would say different but they never have to hear about this. I know you will handle any fallout with discretion. In any case, there's no need to worry about what-ifs after all is said and done."

"Just confess," Jadeite said to him, "you enjoy the drama. Behold, the Prince of Earth's secret persona: Moonlight Knight."

Endymion blushed in embarrassment. "That's terrible."

"Where did you find those clothes, anyway?" Zoisite asked him matter-of-factly.

The Prince shot him a mock-innocent look, spreading his arms. "What's wrong with it? I thought this was how people dressed in Siam. As for the head cloth and weapons, I stole them from one of the men on the roof. You should find him on the other side of that building."

"Quick thinking."

"I would expect no less," said Jadeite.

The two explained for Zoisite's benefit that when their airship arrived on the palace grounds it was already late into the night. They had expected an armed guard to meet them upon landing—thinking their timing would attract suspicion—and escort them to the palace, but were surprised when no one was there to greet them at all. Their instincts told them something was wrong; and it was when they left the ship that they found the guards unconscious and badly injured. It wasn't difficult to catch up with the amir's men, and even less to figure out they were up to no good. Half out of curiosity as to whether he could do it, Endymion slipped in among their ranks while Jadeite staked them out from afar. The rest Zoisite knew.

"Which brings me to the question," he said: "to what do I owe this visit in the first place?"

"To the letter I sent you," said Endymion.

"Yes, I know, the one ordering my return to the Middle Kingdom. But what it wasn't so clear about was why? And why now?"

—o—

Sleep being far from the three, they sat through the early hours of morning before dawn in a private room, close together over pots of tea and coffee. Beneath his sleeve, Zoisite had his wound dressed, but it had already ceased to bother him due to the Prince's having dressed it.

The Prince's calm demeanor was soothing as well, as he related to Zoisite the reason behind his request.

"The ministers have been preoccupied with the nova lately," he said. "Despite that for all appearances it poses no immediate threat, if any threat at all, and that Nephrite has ceased drawing conclusions from the event in the meantime, they still worry about what it will do to the kingdom. They think it would be best to consolidate our spiritual power in the Capital, which in their words entails the _shitennou_ returning to the heart of the Middle Kingdom."

"Superstitious old windbags," Zoisite said under his breath. He meant it seriously, however, in contrast to the usual playfulness with which the words used to roll off his tongue. "If it's the balance of the universe they're so concerned about it makes more sense to keep us where we are, and put Beryl up in the palace permanently."

"You and I know it's about more than that," Endymion said. "Most of them don't have the ability to look at the big picture like you and Jadeite. The nova scared them. Significance aside, whatever it may be, we can all agree it was definitely out of the ordinary. They believe that if they had the four lords close by they would be able to breathe easier."

"As much as they hate to admit it," Jadeite added, "they depend on our advice and our presence. And you have to agree, Zoisite, that if not for our presence the few rational minds like Oblong have little advantage in court over the old conservatives you criticize so much—even with the Prince's influence."

"It's never been my experience that they exactly trust us," said Zoisite.

"No, but they fear us. And more importantly, they fear being without us, just as they do the Moon Kingdom. Their main complaint is this: they detest that they can't control us, and that even when we were young their hold on us was tenuous."

"I understand that much, but worry about their decision to leave the tributary kingdoms without their emperors. Have they decided who will govern in our places?"

"Of course, the tributary kingdoms will be left in the control of its governors and prefects," Endymion said. "After your work over the last few years, Kunzite and I are confident the kingdoms will remain united—or, at least, we don't expect disputes between minor kingdoms to worsen much. That has always been the primary function of the tributary emperor to begin with, to instill a sense of nationalism, to rally the people behind one leader who in turn was loyal to the Capital. That shouldn't change in your absence, should it?"

"Don't misunderstand, I don't question my people's loyalty to the Middle Kingdom," Zoisite said, leaning forward over the table, to which Endymion sat up to listen most intensely. "We have more bureaucrats reporting to the Capital than ever before. The people are proud of their involvement; they see being a tributary kingdom as a challenge to improve themselves. And I've understood from Kunzite that the Northern Kingdom is no closer to the Capital now than it was a century ago. I do worry about what kind of leaders the Capital's ministers plan to replace us with, especially in the East. And what will the West do without Nephrite? Can they be trusted not to secede?

"—I mean—" He glanced at Jadeite uncertainly, worrying he might have hurt his friend's feelings with such a carelessly-made statement; but Jadeite waved it off.

Putting down his cup he said, "I don't know how India feels about these things, but Japan for one would see it as an affront if the Capital suddenly wanted nothing to do with her. There's a feeling, a strong one, among even the peasantry, that the Middle Kingdom has saved her from herself and brought a higher standard of life. There is a certain level of debt there. If it were not for that, I wouldn't have agreed to abdicate the throne."

Zoisite put down his own cup in surprise, before he could take a drink. "Abdicate? I figured you of all of us would retain his title."

"It isn't so uncommon in my country for an emperor to retire at a relatively young age," the other explained to him with an amused smile. "Though there are usually more ordinary reasons for it than my case: to deny the material world, to be banished, make room for someone more impressionable. It doesn't mean I'm abandoning my country. It certainly doesn't change the fact my mother traced her descent from the sun goddess." He nodded to himself, turning to Endymion. "I have a distant cousin on her side who will succeed me. A teenager, but my father won't be able to control him like he did me. I'm actually looking forward to the old bastard's reaction when I go back to make it official, after we return to the Capital."

"Is this what's expected of each of us?" Zoisite wondered aloud. "To become generals and lords?"

"But no longer kings, you mean," Endymion asked. "Only in name."

"Kings without countries or crowns." Zoisite nodded to himself, and a smile slowly formed on his lips. "So, we are to become symbols." And sometimes symbols had the greater power. "It certainly is an interesting notion, Endymion."

"Then you don't have a problem with the move."

"I've already outlined my concerns, but I never presumed to have a choice in the matter. My lord, you already know you have my eternal gratitude and obedience," he said, standing and bowing from the waist. "I can be ready to leave in two days' time."

Letting out a breath, Endymion returned the nod gladly. But it was Jadeite who said, his own look becoming serious: "If you'll pardon my frankness, Endymion, there is one aspect of our orders that still remains a mystery to me. I hear talk of the Moon Kingdom in the Capital but everyone is reluctant to clarify a word of it out loud, not least among them Kunzite." Pacing to work his tired legs, Zoisite's interest was piqued to hear the first of the Prince's generals mentioned in such a context; he had nearly forgotten Kunzite's uncharacteristically cold secrecy on various occasions when he had pried into a matter. With each passing year he became more clearly aware of Jadeite's frustrations with the man. "Will you indulge us, Endymion?" he goaded gently. "It's only the three of us here."

Endymion appeared taken aback. "I don't know what you want me to say," he started.

"Are they angry with us? Is that why the old court officials talk about them like some plague to be avoided? Not that it would surprise me: the nova has brought out the worst prejudices in those old men."

"I don't know why they would be angry. From what I've heard, officials in the planetary kingdoms are concerned about the nova like we are. Perhaps not in the same way . . ." A thoughtful, distant look clouded his features for a moment. "How could you not have been aware of this?"

Endymion forced a laugh. And Jadeite leaned over the low table on his elbows, between the china. Zoisite said for him, "Like I said, they don't trust us much."

Endymion said almost as though to himself, "I should have written you those letters myself. You two of all people should have been notified. Goodness, Nephrite's known for months."

"Known what?"

"That the order to move to the Capital permanently isn't exactly correct, and it wasn't only for the reasons I gave you before. It's true the court ministers have been antsy ever since the nova event, and have been looking for some excuse to gather the _shitennou_ around them, but Queen Serenity had some influence in it as well."

"What would she want us all in the Capital for?" Jadeite asked, but by the wide grin forming on his lips he already had some idea and merely wanted to hear it from the Prince.

Before he could answer, however, a knock came at the door. Bunbo opened it a crack to say, "Excuse me, sir, the man from the ship you wanted to see is here. And I have the letter you requested—"

"Thank you, Bunbo." Zoisite turned to the other two, still seated, saying, "If you'll excuse me, Endymion, Jadeite, I must leave you two for a while. I have some loose ends to tie up—"

"Why don't you bring him here?" Endymion said.

"For what?" Zoisite asked him. He was eager himself to be done and hear what the Prince had had to say about the Moon queen, but reluctant to involve the Prince in his own affairs.

"Perhaps there's some way I can be of service to you."

"With all due respect, you haven't been brought up to speed on this matter. . . ." But Endymion was already standing. "In any case, I couldn't ask you to go out of your way for me any more than you have already."

"After tonight, after hearing you speak your concerns about what's going to happen to our unity," Endymion reassured him, "I couldn't help thinking my involvement in the tributary kingdoms hasn't been adequate. Maybe it's only the nova and its fallout; but I used to think I knew so much about the world, and yet these last five years now seem to have flown by like a dream to me. I think it's about time I took a greater interest in matters outside the Capital."

II.Fifth Year

_In the fifth year of Zoisite's reign as emperor of the Southern Tributary Kingdom and my time under his tutelage, the nova was witnessed in the Hen constellation—bright enough to be seen clearly in the daytime when the light of other stars was drowned out by the sun. Superstitious as Earthmen are, the whole Middle Kingdom was in an uproar immediately after the event; and from what I hear of the Moon Kingdom—and as their decisions regarding the matter ultimately affected us—some level of fear and precaution occurred in the rest of the solar system. It was for this reason that the old ministers in the Capital convinced the Prince to order his four emperors' return, the extent of time indefinite._

__

After the incident with the visiting amir, the tension that continued to exist between the two parties appeared to matter little to Zoisite. Once we boarded the airship, his eagerness to return, and his relief, was apparent. Assured that instead of a king he would become a symbol, he seemed not to mind what was otherwise a demotion: from tributary emperor to general. That did not change the fact that he had been proclaimed a Heavenly Guardian, the avatar of the nobleman who defended the southern winds. And he understood symbols could be more powerful than any earthly title.

In any case, a transformation overcame him as it did every time he was reunited with another of the kings, or with the Prince, that seemed at once so different from his solitary confidence, almost omniscience as Emperor of the South, and yet not different. As though he had been tamed by them, but the biting impulses and cunning intellect that made him such a strong leader in his territory were only finding subtler ways of expressing themselves. As though Endymion had at once rescued him from his inner self, and set that self free.

_Nor could I hide my own excitement: to return to the center of civilization on Earth and to my teacher, and to promises of something new. Despite what everyone said, for some time afterward I could not dismiss the notion that the nova had been a harbinger—as well as (in all likelihood) the cause—not of disaster and grief, but of great things to come._

—o—

"That should about wrap it up."

With those words Oblong and his assistants began to gather up the scrolls they had brought to the throne room in order to bring the new arrivals up to speed, and be brought up to speed on their own happenings in Bangkok.

"In that case, it's about time I got going," said Jadeite.

"So soon?" said Nephrite.

"M-m." The other smiled. He had expected his stay in the Capital would be short, and that he would have to return to Japan to settle his affairs in order to be at the Prince's beck and call before long. Though a few years ago he would have relished the opportunity, he seemed more reluctant to return now, sighing, "Duty calls, and I shouldn't keep country waiting any longer. Family on the other hand . . ." He shrugged good-humoredly.

"Our airship is already waiting for us at the dock," Bunbo said with much less enthusiasm. Zoisite knew that was just his nature, but there had been a hesitant look on the boy's face when he suggested accompanying Jadeite to his homeland. He might never have the chance again, he had said to boost his own spirits; he did owe it to his parents.

"Then let's not keep you any longer," said Endymion. "But remember, Jadeite, I want to be kept abreast of every step of your retirement, and the new appointment—"

"I know, I know," said Jadeite, sounding like a pestered child but for the smile of understanding on his lips. Despite the facade, in private he admitted he liked the new, more involved Prince, who pried into his generals stately affairs. It brought the five of them that much closer, made them that much more a well-oiled machine.

There was no need even to say good-bye within their small group, who were used to spending years at a time apart, knowing they would see each other again, and comforted by the constant presence of lunar technology that would enable that in no time at all. Tearful farewells were a thing of the less sophisticated past.

Reunions, however, were always welcome. And when everyone else had excused himself and gone from the room, Kunzite remained as though waiting for Zoisite. They must have been thinking the same thing, for Zoisite had purposefully not moved a foot from his position. He merely turned to his comrade, who did the same, and they shared a smile.

"I didn't get to say hello to you properly," Zoisite said and together they turned in the direction of the exit. "It's been almost two years since we last saw each other in the flesh. Hard to believe, looking back, that they could have passed so quickly. They didn't seem to at the time."

"It's the last couple months that make it feel so, certainly."

"Right. They must be keeping _you_ especially busy, traveling here and there, what with the spacemen's concerns about the nova." Kunzite shot him a quick, narrow look as though to ask where he had heard that. Zoisite continued with a mock-innocent shrug, "I must say, now that I think about it, that you strike me as the ideal mediator between the two sides."

"With my appearance?"

"I was going to say with your ability to keep a secret. Why, it must rival the Moon Queen's. I can never pry anything out of you. And it can't be easy to keep the ministry from looking like the flock of lily-livered old men they have a tendency to be." Zoisite smiled, and Kunzite snorted. The tension lifted somewhat.

"Do you know it's been almost five years to the week since the first time we met?" said the latter, changing the subject, a small breath like a sigh escaping him.

"I'm aware of that."

"The chrysanthemums will be in full bloom in a short while, I believe."

"I would very much like to see them again."

"Are you free at the moment?"

Zoisite gave him a hard look, reading his companion carefully for his exact meaning. "I thought you said they weren't in bloom yet." He smiled to himself at some private joke, and tilted his head coyly in Kunzite's direction as he continued, "As a matter of fact, I have much pressing business to attend to. You dragged me away from my kingdom quite suddenly—"

Kunzite feigned surprise. "_I_ did that?"

"Well, that's beside the point." But Zoisite couldn't keep the grin from his face. "I have correspondence of the highest priority to keep waiting for me on my desk, my minister's reports—a meeting with the prince of a minor kingdom scheduled for this afternoon—"

"A meeting?" said the other. "You're thousands of _li_ away and you want to conduct a meeting."

"Yes. It's the most remarkable thing, this Moon Kingdom invention. I can communicate instantly with my governors from my offices in the Capital—have some sort of remote control, if you will. It must be reassuring for my people to know I can still fulfill my duties from any place on Earth."

Now it was Kunzite's turn to grin at his comrade's exuberance for such things. "You really have changed," he remarked fondly. "The Zoisite I first met would have cringed at a word like duty. I see this is what giving you your own kingdom does to you."

Zoisite's mood suddenly turned colder at his observation, however. "I do wish you wouldn't patronize me, Kunzite," he said. "I am only doing what I was born to do. And while I'm sure being the Prince's right hand and playing diplomat is very trying business, it is quite a step away from coordinating the efforts of dozens of smaller kingdoms who still like to think themselves independent."

Yet even this chiding did not last long, and he relaxed as he turned to face Kunzite. "But I'm sure it counts as a matter of duty, as well, to catch up on the last few years. Shall we make it an official appointment?"

—o—

Upon Bunbo's return, he learned his family had moved to a villa in the country outside Kyoto. His parents treated it as a form of punishment, but for all he could see the larger house and open vistas and fresh air were an enviable improvement. Had they been such complaining people his entire life and he simply never noticed? Why, if they only cared to imagine what their own son's journey had been like, moving from one part of the globe to another, risking his life, perhaps they would have been more grateful.

However, though he had heard his father was ill, Bunbo never expected to see him in this condition. The man who had been the epitome of professional vanity, always impressing on his son the need for propriety in everything, preferred to talk with him in his sitting room with his kimono hanging off his shoulders, and his graying hair in a state of disarray that years ago he would have corrected as soon as he woke. A young woman he had trained as a practitioner in his heir's absence applied a moxy treatment to his back while he leisurely drank his tea. The smell of its burning was strong in Bunbo's nostrils, and his mind, bringing back memories of mixing simple formulas in his father's shop and shooting furtive glances when his tutors weren't looking at the middle-aged and elderly men who came in for similar procedures, bags under their eyes and skin sagging loose and discolored on their bones.

"He says its his kidneys," his mother had explained to him, almost as soon as she laid eyes on him. "I told him he should drink less and eat more cabbage rather than stink up the whole house with that stuff, but he believes firmly in his treatments. He says they've been using them in the Capital for ages, and the Chinese wouldn't still be doing it if it was wrong. Oh, well; I guess he is the scientist," she would finally admit with a sigh.

Inside, Bunbo let out his own sigh in his soul. Not even a week had passed and he wearied of being here, longing for the time he would be able to return. He looked forward to Jadeite's letters from the capital, written in his own hand and comically personal voice—too personal for the awkwardness the two still had in person—that told of his progress in the court, the ladies who lived there, his cousin's eloquence, and his father's displeasure. The way Jadeite seemed to laugh at this, as though it were something disconnected from himself, bolstered Bunbo's feelings of independence from his own parents, and allowed him to continue his stay in their house, even though his novelty was clearly wearing off.

"Another letter from the Emperor!" his mother would exclaim when she saw the messenger arrive at the gate—the signal for Bunbo to intercept the letters quickly before she could. No doubt she was dying of curiosity to read them; but Bunbo doubted she would find the contents living up to her expectations. Instead she gloated to her husband: "Aren't you proud of what your son has become? He is friends with the Emperor! Oh, what it must be like to be in the confidence of that charming young man. And what a privilege for us, to have a son reporting back to the Middle Kingdom court! Do you think we must have been connected somehow in a past life?"

No one could really say with such things, so Bunbo allowed her the small pleasure of that thought. But he could not help feeling embarrassed to be born to such simple-minded people as these, and felt himself reluctantly sympathizing with Jadeite even more, with whom in the court, with each letter, he longed to be.

If not for family duty. . . .

As for his father, he could never tell if that man were as proud as his mother was. Bunbo noticed the success of the business: his father had offices in Kyoto and Nara, and the practitioners he had trained worked in noblemen's palaces. All of it brought enough income to buy land in the country and live comfortably for the rest of his and his wife's lives. The family name would surely continue in the legacy it left in medicine.

But there would be no son to pass it along. It was that guilt that Bunbo felt his father was trying to impress upon him; and he blamed Zoisite for it all.

Not that it mattered. His father's displeasure could never make Bunbo regret his decision. It only confirmed in his heart what he had already suspected: this had never been his home.

—o—

With a satisfied groan, Zoisite allowed himself to be carried away by the pleasure of a transient moment. He sighed at the breathless kisses Kunzite left on his bare collar bone as he slowly withdrew, and fell on his own back on the wide bed panting. It made Zoisite chuckle once he had caught his own breath to see his normally unmovable comrade affected so by such a mundane thing as sex. In a sudden fit of affection, he murmured without even thinking, "I love you."

"M-m," was all Kunzite said back. If he felt uncomfortable in that moment, however, he hid it well. His smile reached to his bicolor eyes, shining clear in the morning light. "Good to see I haven't lost my touch, then."

It was tempting to stay like this all day, lying in his own bed with Kunzite with the sunlight of another clear autumn day pouring at an angle through the shutters into the room. The last week had seemed a dream compared to his life in the south from which he never wanted to awake: long stretches of quiet interrupted only by the birds that flitted across the tiled roofs and Kunzite's visits, even the heavy workload seeming like a pleasure.

Mustering his strength, Zoisite willed his body to rise out of bed. As he moved himself gingerly to the edge of the mattress, Kunzite said, "What? Did I say something?"

"Can't stay in bed all day," Zoisite told him over his shoulder. "It's growing late even as we speak."

"I'd be surprised if we've even entered the Hour of the Dragon."

"More like the Snake."

"That's an exaggeration and you know it."

Zoisite smiled to himself as he went to pour water into the wash basin. Soaking a cloth he wiped his face and his stomach, then tossed it good-naturedly to Kunzite. "Then stay a while. I'm not in any hurry to have you leave." With Bunbo away, there was no reason to be cautious about having Kunzite in his quarters. "You can help yourself to making a pot of coffee if you wish," Zoisite said as he quickly pulled back his hair and pulled on a casual suit of clothes. "I would love to share it with you when I return."

"Return? Where are you going?"

"Just out for some fresh air," Zoisite assured him. "I shall be back momentarily."

The air outside had the definite chill of the autumn months to it, though the bright sunlight that hit the planking of a wooden walkway in slanted parallelograms seemed to have a tangible warmth to it. It could not have been as late as Zoisite had claimed. Nor was it early enough for the first rush to prepare the day for the nobles who lived in the city.

On a whim, he walked the path that led to one of the Capital's gardens. It took him past a temple that had been wedged into the winding corridors, with open colonnades that would be ideal for meditation. That morning had left him in an adventurous mood, so he stepped inside to see the dark shrines that were now all but abandoned after morning prayers.

The smell of incense smoke winding its way to the dark rafters was heavy in the air when he approached the buddha statue at the back of the room. It was a standing piece of an old style, the blank face of which did nothing to impress Zoisite or rouse in him any sense of obligation to the religion he had once superficially taken as his own. Rather, his attention was captured by a small portrait that sat beside the statue. It was a picture of the goddess the Hindus called Kali, and that he had dreamed of his mother calling God's Mercy, her black skeletal, asexual body and hideously grinning face gilded with gold leaf that was worn in patches with age.

"Have you come to offer a prayer?" said a voice beside him. Zoisite turned to see Boxy approaching him in his red monk's robes and yellow surplice. "Forgive me, Master Zoisite, it's just that I never see you in a place such as this."

"Unless it's expected of me, right?" Zoisite shook his head. "No. I merely stepped in on a whim."

"No one is drawn to the Buddha on merely a whim, or just to look," said the other. "It is the weight of his karma on his soul that brings him inside, especially from such a gorgeous day as this."

"Perhaps you're right," Zoisite admitted after a moment. Staring transfixed at the small portrait, he could not help remembering that day in his own palace before the Prince came, and feel a chill that was not caused by the weather. Feelings that had been relegated to the back of his mind, repressed for the sake of more pressing concerns, resurfaced in his consciousness. The things that had happened to him . . . The things he had done . . . Had he really done them, or had it been a dream had by someone in the distant past?

Startled by that admission, coming from such a stubbornly atheistic man, Boxy lowered his voice as he pressed: "Did something happen in Siam, my lord?"

Turning his head, Zoisite made as if to leave.

"Please. If your soul is tortured by something, don't leave it unresolved—"

"I broke one of the commandments," Zoisite told him, keeping a faint smile on his lips as a shield. "Not that I would normally worry about such things, but the fact of the matter is it does _not_ sit well with me. I killed a man, Boxy."

"Oh." The monk paused to gather a response. "Well, we can't all be saints. You four were trained to take life if needed, to protect the Prince or yourselves—"

"It was not in self defense. It was an act of revenge."

Another pause. "There must still have been good reason. If a vendetta is justified—"

"It isn't that either!" Suddenly Zoisite felt restricted in the dark room and found himself longing for the bright light in the open air, away from the blank eyes that sat in judgment. He regretted stepping into the temple, knowing it might ensnare him like a trap. Keeping his back to Boxy and the statues at the altar, he confessed quietly: "I killed a man, and I enjoyed it."

—o—

_My fifth year in Zoisite's service was a pivotal time in the Middle Kingdom. Within the Capital and in the major cities throughout the kingdom, tradition and the new Moon Kingdom way of life existed side by side. The superstitious could no longer shun godless scientific finding, it was in one way or another woven into their lives, and the two were constantly weighed on the moral scale. Was it better to have the knowledge and the luxury of the gods, but be utterly dependent like the spacemen upon its delicate functioning? or to be free, but work harder for a smaller yield of crop, die of curable diseases, and spend weeks and months on an important journey that could be taken in days? To you, Princess, it must seem foolish and unsophisticated; but to us it was necessary. It was a question of our identity. I wonder if the planetary kingdoms have ever in their long reigns experienced the same struggle._

_It was about that time the Middle Kingdom's attentions shifted rather suddenly from Earth to Outer Space._

—o—

On most days Bunbo was allowed to enter Master Oblong's house without first being announced. But today his tutor had a guest. Bunbo heard them talking quietly as he stood outside the door. The subject was fuzzy, only parts of sentences understandable; but it was not the subject that interested him. He recognized Oblong's typical strong, wizened voice. The other was strange to him, for the person sounded young, about the age of Endymion and his generals, yet possessed a calm authority in his voice even greater than the Prince's; a soothing and sophisticated yet vibrant timbre that drifted through the air to him like ripples in liquid. At the sound of it, Bunbo's humble nature made him hesitant, even regretful of bothering his tutor when he was engaged in something so obviously important.

"Young master Bunbo is here to see you, sir," Oblong's attendant announced with a curt bow.

Bunbo interjected quickly: "_Laoshi_, you have company. I'll come back another time."

"That won't be necessary," came his tutor's voice. "I'm sure my guest won't mind too much."

"Not at all," said the other cordially. Having that voice directed at him, ringing loud and clear in the hall, made Bunbo's heart beat faster. "I would be honored to make the young master's acquaintance."

Bunbo stepped away from the wall against which he had been leaning. It seemed he didn't have a choice now. He wondered why he hesitated to step into Master Oblong's study. The nervous feeling he had about the guest was irrational and unsupported by any glimpse into the future; yet he could not deny the slightest twinge of fear that he told himself was spurred by the novelty of the guest's voice when he said to Oblong, "As far as I'm concerned, the more acquaintances I can make while I'm here the better."

Bunbo stepped into the doorway, head bowed and eyes downcast in both respect and mental preparation. Behind him the attendant bowed and left. Not wanting to seem rude, he lifted his eyes to greet the guest and was momentarily taken aback by what he saw.

The man sitting across from his tutor was tall and pale with long white hair, so that at first glance he resembled Kunzite. However, Bunbo noticed, his hair was much longer and his frame far thinner than Kunzite's. In fact, he was so gaunt his body seemed to be folded into the chair rather than just sitting on it. Though he sat perfectly erect, the silvery blue silk suit of the Chinese court hung oddly on his body and seemed misplaced on him. That was not to say he appeared emaciated. His long-boned hands, one resting lightly on his knee and the other on the rosewood table, and his facial features were soft, hinting at a life of complete luxury, his complexion healthy. He wore a Buddha's smile, peaceful and hardly readable.

But it was his eyes which unsettled Bunbo most of all. They were too large for his face. Not to the point of being grotesque or impossible, just noticeably different. They reminded Bunbo of a cat's eyes: intent and calm and curious. In fact, his whole appearance and poise could best be described as feline—inherently so, unlike those described as such who displayed merely a graceful composure or quick reflexes. It was as though his apparent frailty was just a front, and he would leap out of the chair at any moment. That he would do something unpredictable, yet it would seem as natural as anything in the world. Rather suddenly the thought struck Bunbo that this man's body, though it seemed frail in the confines of this Middle Kingdom house, would be perfectly suited for a place of lesser gravity.

With that revelation, Bunbo realized he was staring at a true spaceman.

In that moment while he stared and forgot his manners, Oblong said to him, "Bunbo, this is Artemis, of the Moon Kingdom."

—o—

_And finally, Outer Space saw it fit to send us a representative._

III.Spacemen

"Well, for the final order of business," Artemis said after a short pause, "Queen Serenity has extended an invitation to her kingdom to the Prince and his generals, the five Heavenly Emperors. Arrangements have been made so that they may be able to depart as soon as possible."

He waited a moment for a response. Thus far the ministers he had made the journey to address had received news that the Moon Kingdom was worried about the political and economic nature of their relationship, and that the Queen wanted to open communications immediately to best assure a successful future, with an apathy that, under the circumstances, one in his position had to take as a sign of concurrence. The silence did appear to disturb him somewhat.

"I hope the officers of the Middle Kingdom have no objections," Artemis continued, trying to appear undaunted. "The planetary kingdoms may be reluctant to say it, but they require the Prince's help."

"The Prince's help?" Master Rhombus spoke up. "They always want the Prince's help. The Queen wanted his father's help as well, and we know what became of him. Are we to send the guardians of our kingdom up into space, so that you may benefit from their guidance and we are left with none?"

"We have no such intentions. In fact, we have technology that will allow the tributary emperors to stay in contact with their kingdoms even from the moons of Jupiter—"

"And what should happen if that technology fails you?" said another elderly minister. "If the spaceships cease to function?"

"What are these idiots thinking?" Jadeite whispered loud enough for the four of them to hear, though it was Nephrite's ear he leaned toward. "You'd think they hadn't heard a word the man has said, dwelling on petty things they know nothing about."

Hearing that, Zoisite felt his blood begin to boil at the old officers' ignorance. It brought back memories of his first time in the Capital—or before even that, when in Jadeite's court, when he had served as emperor of his country, Rhombus and his fellows had doubted Zoisite's competency, telling the entire dining hall how certain he was the monks had made a mistake in choosing this one.

"Excuse me for one moment, gentlemen," Zoisite said suddenly in a loud, clear voice, and stood and turned to the crowd. "If you have a valid objection to Queen Serenity's request, I'm sure that Master Artemis would be grateful to hear it so that all our misunderstandings can be quickly cleared up. But if you prefer to waste his and the Prince's and all of our times on these thinly veiled and, frankly, embarrassing expressions of your distrust, then I suggest you take it directly to the source rather than projecting your fears onto this man who is only trying to do his job."

Artemis' already large eyes had widened at the initial interruption, but now they showed a nervous displeasure as he leaned toward Zoisite. "Please," he said softly, "I wish you wouldn't make this harder for me—"

"Just what are you suggesting, Master Zoisite?" said the ministers, shocked that he would raise his voice against them.

"He's suggesting," Endymion retorted from his seat, "that the old Prince's council is too cowardly to say what it really means."

Over their mutterings of disapproval, Artemis went on, "I know the fear of spacemen runs deep in Earth culture, but it must not stand in the way of either of our civilizations' progress. Those I represent before this council may not be of this world, but they are humans who bleed red when you hurt them, and they laugh when you humor them. They look no different from any of you."

"Easy for an outsider to say," said one temerous official. "To you all _humans_ must look alike."

That set off a new uproar among the old officials, unwilling to give up the mistrust they had clinged to for so long, and the new. It took a conscious effort for Artemis to retain his calm and patient exterior before them.

It all came out in private later.

"Those doddering, flatulating old fools!" Artemis spat as he paced the small garden within the confines of Kunzite's house. The failure of his heretofore impeccable manners caused Jadeite to smile, but none of them found it humorous. "Where do they get off treating Her Majesty's messenger like that? Don't they realize they are only hurting themselves spouting that prejudice. And they call themselves professionals and wise. . . ." He stopped pacing and stifled a growl of frustration, then raised his head. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but I could not stand for their behavior."

"Neither could we," said Kunzite, who leaned with one foot on a large rock while he let the other blow off steam. "Endymion has made it clear that kind of treatment is unacceptable. They should do themselves good to listen to you with a clear head next time."

Artemis nodded. "I don't understand," he said. "I am a person of the kingdom of the Moon. I have a mother and a father. Right, Jadeite?"

Jadeite looked pleased as he recognized the quote from his own country's literature. "Right."

"In any case," said Zoisite, leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed, "they can't keep us from accompanying you back to your kingdom. If Queen Serenity has summoned us to her court, who are we to refuse? It's about time Nephrite and I saw space."

"Yes, it is!" Artemis' fowl mood evaporated all at once at the thought that suddenly rose to his mind. He turned to the two. "It's time you experienced the effects of your invention for yourselves."

"Our invention?" said Nephrite. "It's in use already?"

"In the ships that brought me here," said Artemis, smiling. "Thanks to your work, the engines in the new models allow us to leave the Moon's gravity well with more ease than before. I am eager to see them at work breaking free of Earth's, just as they were designed to do. You must be excited as well."

"Of course. . . ." Zoisite exchanged a slightly bewildered look with Nephrite. "A little nervous, perhaps . . ."

Artemis seemed somewhat bewildered himself at that response. "Sure, it is new technology; it's natural to have doubts. If it will reassure you, the Queen's own royal engineers supervised the assembly—"

Zoisite shook his head. "No. I have the utmost faith in the _spacemen's_ know-how," he said with a lopsided smile, remembering fondly the model rockets of his youth in India. But if he were honest, he had even more faith in his co-inventor's genius.

—o—

A few days later and they were miles above the Earths' surface on their way to the Moon Kingdom. The two silver ships took off smoothly, rising with deceptively little effort through the atmosphere and leaving the massive grounds of the Forbidden City to shrink rapidly behind them in their wake. It really took no time at all. According to the captain of this ship, they would reach the Moon Kingdom in hardly more time than it took him to arrive at the Capital from India. The sheer force and speed required for such a feat went entirely unnoticed now that they were in the vacuum.

"How does it feel?" Artemis said, coming up behind Nephrite, who stood at the windows looking out to their rear at the receding Earth.

Nephrite answered him without turning from the window: "How does what feel?"

"Looking at the Earth from afar like this for the first time. Seeing it in its entirety. Watching it shrink slowly before your eyes."

"It is . . ." Nephrite smiled. "Quite something."

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Actually, it does," he acquiesced. "When you're on the surface, it never crosses your mind that you could ever see the entire Earth at one time, let alone that it could ever seem small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It's disorienting."

Beside him Artemis shrugged as though in a silent sigh. "I know the feeling. Each time I leave the Moon, I can't help wondering if this is how my ancestors felt leaving their world, knowing that was the last time they would ever set eyes on it. But when I reach Earth and look up into the night sky, she's there, the same as she ever was, waiting patiently for my return."

Nephrite glanced sideways at him, unsure how to respond to such an intimate profession that almost seemed a confession of love. Instead he said, out of sheer curiosity: "You call the Moon your home, but you are not of the same race as those who live there, are you?"

A smile slowly appeared on Artemis' lips as he looked out the window. "No. I am not. I hear that Earthmen and spacemen once lived together in one place, though no one is sure where that was. My ancestors came from a different star system entirely. They left it after some great catastrophe made their homeworld incapable of supporting them and spread out across the galaxy, betting on the chance that in at least one direction they would find a place to start again."

"That's an incredible story," Nephrite said, and though his tone did not convey it he meant it with all his being.

Artemis just shrugged. "Yes. It's a nice _story_. I wonder sometimes how much of it is true, and how much is merely meant to console those of us who made our living in this system."

"How many of you are left?"

"Only a handful, scattered across the planetary kingdoms." Suddenly seeming self-conscious, he pulled back his arm that had been leaning against the window frame. And eager to change the subject, said: "I worry about your friend Zoisite, though. It's usual for Earthmen to feel some remorse parting from their mother planet for the first time, but he seems positively ecstatic. Are you sure he hasn't been into space before?"

"I assure you," Nephrite said feeling a smile come to his lips, "he hasn't. I don't think it's anything to be concerned about, either. He has been somewhat of a nomad for much of his life."

"I . . . see," said Artemis slowly, sounding as though he did not.

"That and he can't help but take any new experience with a mindset that is rational to a fault."

Despite the sarcasm in Nephrite's voice, a bit of fondness must have crept in as well, for the other broke into quite a grin as he said, in such a way as to suggest he thought himself clever for making the connection, "Then that's it. I knew there was something about you two that was so similar, but that explains it. That must be why you two don't seem to get along."

Don't get along? Nephrite was about to open his mouth to refute that claim, but something inside stopped him. It was true that sparks like static electricity seemed to fly about a room whenever some debatable issue came up while they were both in it. He couldn't deny the irritated feeling that rose up within him at those times they argued, that lacked the enjoyment they once had and caused him to go so far as to defend positions he knew he was against wholeheartedly. When exactly had they let it get so out of hand?

At a console on the upper level of the bridge, in a seat positioned almost directly beneath the center of the wide windows that opened up to the sparkling field of space, Zoisite sat leaning his chin against his hand. His attention was not for the starfield but for the screen in front of him, on which annotated images of the moon went by.

Sensing Nephrite's approach, he raised his head. "Tell me, Nephrite," he began, "if the Moon has some of the richest lava flows in the civilized solar system, why does it rely so heavily on the Earth for its supply of grains?"

"Perhaps it has something to do with the lesser gravity. —Or the fourteen-day nights."

"Oh, right." Zoisite said quietly to himself. "I forgot about those."

"An easy thing to do."

Zoisite turned in his chair just as Nephrite joined him, each hand preoccupied with a goblet that looked both silver and almost translucent, fashioned in a shape that was both organic and not. Items that must have come with the ship. He extended one of the cups to Zoisite, who accepted it but did nothing else. "What's this?" he said skeptically.

"Now, Zoisite, what's with the suspicious look? You act as though you think I would attempt to poison you."

"The thought hadn't crossed my mind. But now that you say such a thing, I can't help but wonder, can I?"

Nephrite smiled despite himself, though it hurt to know Zoisite was perfectly serious. "It's a lunar wine, from the Queen's special reserve," he explained. "Made from a special fruit that hibernates in the daylight and matures on starlight." Zoisite took an experimental sniff as he continued. "Artemis thought you could use a drink. He doesn't quite buy your nonchalance in all this. Your ward is spacesick, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Bunbo? Of course I noticed. But there's only so much that can be done about that." He took a small sip of the goblet's contents and his eyebrows rose in surprise. "This actually isn't bad," he remarked, feeling the warming effects in his blood already.

"No, it isn't. —Say," Nephrite said as he took a seat on the arm of the chair next to Zoisite's, "if you need something to drink to, how about our engine's success?"

"Of course. Thank you for reminding me, Nephrite. I never doubted it would work."

They clinked their cups together, the strange material making a remarkably clear ring, and Zoisite tipped his back. Nephrite, however, raised the cup to his lips but didn't drink, instead watching his comrade. "Never doubted, huh? Then that look you shot me when Artemis gave us the news was just for show."

Zoisite shrugged. "What else? Those things to which I was referring happened a long time ago. —And besides, you always ruined our work on purpose. Here I was trying to get a rocket to fly, and you'd secretly changed the flight plans to explode."

Nephrite laughed, a sincere, rich laugh that Zoisite suddenly realized he hadn't heard in a very long time. The nostalgia of remembering those carefree times suddenly brought with it a feeling of melancholy and regret in the dark vacuum of space.

He found himself saying, "What happened to us, Nephrite?"

"Has something happened?" The mirth was still evident in the other's voice, even as he looked down at the swirling wine in his cup.

"You know what I mean," Zoisite said. "We used to be so close, then something changed and now it's as though we have our separate orbits. I can't reach you anymore."

"We've changed. Responsibility has changed us."

"I know that, but . . ." He sighed slowly. "We used to be like brothers. Like Krishna and Sudama."

"Which at heart is an unequal relationship," Nephrite told him pointedly. "We may have treated one another like brothers, but we were always trying to outdo one another, upping the ante each year, undermining each other's arguments. It was only a matter of time before it became too serious, and I couldn't just shrug it off anymore. Working on this project together, there were times I wanted to strangle you for telling me such a thing wouldn't work, or that the calculations that had taken me so long were wrong."

"And I resented you for dragging me into it, even though I'd been interested since you first showed me the proposals." Zoisite shook his head. "How did we let it get so out of hand, Nephrite?"

"When we started taking every little thing as a personal insult, I'd say."

At one time, the humiliation being shown up by Zoisite caused had been enough to keep him from giving up entirely. It had been the motivation to study harder and become better. Somewhere along the line, that feeling must have grown exponentially until it became a deep resentment, ridiculous in its utter weight. Now he felt how much he wanted to be rid of it.

"I don't want to live like that anymore," Zoisite said as though reading his thoughts.

Nephrite looked up at him and their eyes met.

"It just feels wrong, out of balance," said the other. "You don't suppose it's too late, do you, to start over? We can never go back to the way things were when we were boys, but I can't bear the thought of losing your confidence forever."

It seemed a long two seconds before Nephrite broke a fresh grin. He raised the glass in his hand toward his lips in a secret toast. "Neither can I."

—o—

Endymion looked up from his game of chess with Kunzite when Jadeite entered the room. "Nice of you to join us," he said amiably. "And just in time. You can take over for me. I could use a break."

"Certainly. Space travel does have the added effect of loosening your bowels. Auntie always said if you want to stay regular—"

The other two men smiled at Jadeite's tone that recalled street peddlers of medicine and old wive's cures, but Beryl, who sat cross-legged tuning a biwa, failed to see the humor and rolled her eyes. "Do you mind, Jadeite? Such crude talk is not welcome in this company."

"Oh. Pardon me, my lady," the other retorted sarcastically.

"It's all right," said Endymion with a slight chuckle as he rose. "I need merely to stretch out my legs. They've started to ache from all this sitting around."

"Which reminds me," said Jadeite as the other left and he went to take a seat across from Kunzite, "why I came in the first place. The captain has just informed me we've passed the halfway mark. The Moon should start to look much larger from this point on. Already? you say— Whose move is it?"

"Yours."

"Right." He leaned over the board. "Well, for that you can thank our good friends on the other ship. I wonder how they're taking all this."

"Yes," Kunzite agreed, but his tone seemed uninterested as he gazed blankly out the window into space. "It's the experience of a lifetime."

Jadeite leaned back in his seat. "And what about you, Beryl? Do you remember your first time on the Moon?"

"How could I forget?" she said ambiguously, strumming a few notes as she bent over the lute, and nothing more than that.

"The week-long parties, beautiful faces wherever you turn, and the food—God, I can never forget the food!" Jadeite leaned his arm over the chair after he had made his move, closing his eyes as though revisiting those distant places for only a moment. "Although, perhaps my young mind was so entranced with the novelty of it all and Serenity in particular that my memories are fonder than they are true, but what do I care. Knowing the Moon Kingdom, none of it will have changed a bit."

"Well," said Kunzite distantly, "_some_ things will have changed."

Neither of his companions said anything after that. Beryl turned once again to her biwa. A knowing smile spread on Jadeite's lips as he let the silence stretch out and become uncomfortable, finally prompting Kunzite to ask him, "What?"

"Your move, daydreaming Genji."

Kunzite appeared only a bit shaken to realize his attention had shifted from the board. He made his move in an instant, however, causing Jadeite to wonder if he hadn't made the wrong decision and unwittingly doomed his Prince should Endymion return to finish the game. Without once looking up, Kunzite said, "Stop giving me that look, Jadeite."

"What look?" Jadeite shrugged. "You are thinking about her, aren't you? You're as transparent as usual."

The other's ignorance was not completely ungenuine. "About whom?"

"The Morning Star who flies close to the Moon's side." As though it would be somehow too much to say what he meant outright, he pointed his chin out the window into the black space that had captured the other's attention until only a moment ago.

Catching his meaning, Kunzite smiled. "I was wondering how Nephrite and Zoisite are taking the trip. I hope they're enjoying their first view of the planet Earth. But at least I know where your thoughts lie."

A nostalgic mood came over Jadeite as he contemplated his next move. "It's been more than twelve years since we last spoke face to face. I was still just a child then; I thought I knew everything. Until I kissed her, that is, and received one of the soundest beatings of my life." He smiled at some private memory deep within his self. "It's only natural to feel a strong sense of anticipation—and anxiety—when faced with the frank truth. I knew nothing. Will she even remember that?" he asked no one in particular, then frowned. "Oh, yes, undoubtedly she won't have forgotten. It's just unfortunate for me mine's manners about visiting Earth aren't as poor as yours."

Kunzite continued to smile at his sarcasm, vaguely and out at the stars.

Scowling suddenly at the train their conversation had taken, Beryl rose with her biwa and excused herself from the room. It was as though she had read his mind, Jadeite thought, as he had been wanting to catch Kunzite alone sometime on this trip.

"When we were teenagers," he started again, breaking the silence that had fallen, "we were carefree, weren't we? But when I became an adult, my tutors told me to put away amorous dalliances, as though they were mere childish diversions I had grown out of. After all, I would eventually take a wife; and those little love affairs may have been harmless fun in my youth but had no place in the wedding chamber." He paused. "Have you told him yet?"

"Told whom?"

"Zoisite, of course."

Silence answered him.

"I'll take that to mean you have not. I suppose you were just going to let him find out for himself."

"Why shouldn't I?" Blinking, Kunzite turned in the other's direction. "It's really none of his business, is it? Just like however he ends up getting along with Mercury is none of mine."

Jadeite narrowed his eyes. "You actually believe he'll share your opinion of the matter."

The other shrugged. "What choice does he have? In any case," he added pointedly, his tone turning cold, "you know not of what you speak, Jadeite, so I suggest you reserve your judgment for art and the affairs of court ladies."

Jadeite snorted. The smile that stubbornly clung to his lips turned malicious. "You cold-hearted bastard. You really think I don't know? You think no one else figured it out?" He gazed up at Kunzite from under his brows. "I care about Zoisite very much, Kunzite—"

"Then I suggest you don't allow your jealousy to get the better of you and do something you regret," the other cut him off. And even with the calm that Kunzite exuded, Jadeite knew it would be futile to try and win an argument of this nature with his elder comrade. He would lose just as soundly as he was losing this game—as soundly as he had lost Zoisite. Behind the lopsided smile, Jadeite gritted his teeth so hard they hurt.

As though reading his train of thought, Kunzite added somewhat gentler, "For his sake."

IV.Moonrise

Unable to sleep in this alien place with its strange sense of time, Zoisite slipped out of his new quarters for a stroll through the palace grounds.

However, in comparison to the rest of the city around it, it could hardly be called a palace. The whole of civilization on this satellite appeared wealthy and equal; no part was so much fairer than another. Here there was no need for separating walls to keep the poor and criminal from noblemen's eyes: there were no poor nor criminal. There was no need to confine architecture to what gravity would allow: it was not the same restricting force it was on Earth. Pillars rose untopped into the night sky, terraces that knew no symmetry were the giants' steps that led up to the domed halls and rounded towers, with windows pane-less and misty-white walls draped with the clinging vines of plants that blossomed in starlight and hibernated in the fourteen-day-long day.

From these steps hours ago he had first seen the Sea of Serenity, before known only by hearsay. Tranquil as its name bespoke, it sparkled faintly from the reflection of the stars, like light causes the finest snow to sparkle as if it were made of diamonds. And it seemed cold as ice from here surrounded by nothing but the ashen gray hills and monotone buildings, dotted by hardy vegetation of such a dark green color as to appear also muted in the faint light of the lunar twilight.

He had often heard it said that the moonpeople never slept, conjuring images of celebrations held for their own sakes lasting for days on end, the revelers napping in shifts if at all. It could not have been true if the silence that had descended now was any indication. And standing looking at the ancient sea alone, he was at once disappointed and overwhelmed by the vastness of the place, and its great age. Compared to this permanence and immutability Earth was a volatile planet, a vivacious planet, changing its appearance like one changes clothing.

In the horizon above the mountains hung the gibbous Earth. Larger to him now than the Moon had ever appeared from Earth, it was the only thing of brilliant color in his entire field of vision. It was indeed like a gem, blue as Indian sapphires mottled with jasper and topaz, peridot and green zoisite, the clouds swirling about it like delicate lines of strata in white agate. From this angle, this side, he could not point to his kingdom; he could not point to anything. If he were to hold out his hand, he was sure that orb would fit with room to spare inside his palm. As large as it loomed on the horizon, it still seemed only a tiny marble floating in the great sea of the sky. It was such as to give someone a sense of insecurity, realizing the insignificance of his world. Yet for Zoisite it was filled with a new sense of importance that even he could not quite understand. Something akin to a feeling of patriotism.

As he turned to go, a human face glimpsed out of the corner of the eye made him stop. From a balcony, a figure watched the Earth just as he had done. The figure was that of a girl of fourteen or so. The suggestion of a lithe young body under the slip of a dress she wore and the delicate bare arms folded neatly upon the railing told him so. The wide eyes that gazed rapt at the sky had in them the purity of youth—and the naivety of it as well. In the soft earthlight, her pale skin and immaculate white dress, and the golden locks that fell freely over her shoulders almost seemed to become as hazy as the Moon itself and glow.

Yet Zoisite felt nothing but the simple recognition: she must be the princess of the Moon. Here was that figure that drove the shepherd prince Endymion to marvel in awe in his dreams—what drove Bajie in lust to his downfall and cursed rebirth—the shining child Kaguya who was a treasure to a lowly bamboo cutter—that chastity to which Hippolytus had sworn himself until death: the Maiden of the Moon. The very being that ruled the most primitive kernel of religion in man's heart.

And he felt unmoved. She seemed no different from any of the snub-nosed adolescent girls to be found on Earth. If this was the future of their kingdom, he could not help but think, thus far it did not look as spectacular as it was told.

* * *

End of Part Five


	8. Part Six

Part Six

It was a strange morning light that filtered down through the crystalline arches and domes and vaults of the Moon Palace, striking the polished tiles of gray volcanic rock with intriguing parallelograms of light, and throwing more than one shadow at Bunbo's feet as he walked the hallways. The Earth was in its third quarter, and life within the city's walls seemed to be just awakening from its fourteen-day-long night, though pale and almost naked was the sunlight that graced them on this world, and the brightest stars still shone clearly against the pale green sky—as did the nova in the hen constellation.

Bunbo wondered if that would be a subject of the Queen's first audience with the visitors from Earth. Soon he would see for himself. Zoisite had argued the case for him to be allowed to watch the proceedings, and the Queen's officers, so unlike the old Prince's on Earth, had had no objection. "If it would please you," Artemis had even said to him, "you may sit with me and be nearer Her Majesty."

"I think I should feel uncomfortable sitting so close upon our first meeting," Bunbo told him honestly. "But I appreciate your generosity. Will there be others of your kind there?"

Artemis smiled. "A few. Those who are not stationed in the other kingdoms shall of course attend. Shall I introduce you to them? They are all very eager to learn more of Earthmen since the planet has been closed to us for so long."

Bunbo was eager as well, but he was also anxious. The prospect of meeting a man from an ancient and alien system, let alone being in the same room with the Moon Queen herself, was exciting at the same time as it was terrifying, like it might be to meet the gods; and he was not sure whether he appreciated more the novelty of the spacemen or their, more often than not, at least in Artemis's case, utter humanness.

In either case, the citizens of the Moon seemed an open people. If they were wary of outsiders, they did not show it, and perhaps that was only prudent. Zoisite had once told him that one should keep his friends close and his enemies closer—a lesson Jadeite, his own countryman, adhered to—so Bunbo could not fault their wisdom that had survived so many millennia, even as empires on his own planet rose and fell like the tide.

After familiarizing himself with this wing of the palace, he returned to the quarters he shared with Zoisite. The great doors that led to the balcony were thrown open and the curtains billowed in a strangely warm breeze that carried the faint, briny scent of the sea. There was no worry of thievery here, nor assassins who might steal into a lord's house in the night. Beyond the interior spaces of the main room, flowering lunar vines curled around the balcony's banister; and Bunbo could not help wondering in vain how long they had lain there, as eternally undisturbed as they looked against the background of silver spires and gray, distant hills.

They said the same became of Earthmen who stayed too long in the lunar air, eating lunar food and drinking lunar water. Youth was fleeting, and he was already fifteen. How long would he have to stay here to remain this way forever?

Moreover, in ten, twenty, one hundred years—would he still want to?

I.Serenity

"So this is the very spot from which the Moon Queen rules Outer Space," Nephrite said later that morning, in a low, distant voice only the four of them could hear as they sat waiting for Serenity to grace them with her presence.

The throne room was a paragon of Neoclassical architecture, though its age surely superseded any of those traditions that would later spawn it. Like the rest of the palace, that silver city that was and would be the muse of so many artists' dreams, there were elements that recalled times that were only a primal memory of man, as well as those that were as if premonitions of the future, the halls surmounted by magnificent ovoid domes the likes of which would not begin to be seen on Earth for five centuries. The Queen's private audience hall, heavy and soaring at once, its grand yet intimate interior space defined by thick and nondescript, towering columns topped by gilded botanical arabesque-carved capitals and friezes and arches under a coffered barrel-vault ceiling, all cut of the same silver, marble-like igneous moonrock that seemed to form all of the buildings here. As ubiquitous and plastic as concrete, it would hardly seem fit for one so ethereal of beauty and almost god-like in fame, until one saw how it sparkled in the earthlight from layers of crystalline strata below its translucent surface.

"Like a city of ice," Zoisite remarked when Kunzite said nothing and Jadeite smiled. "Yet I feel quite warm in it."

"There is not a single structure like it on Earth," the latter said.

"It is beyond anything I could have expected trying to catch a glimpse through a telescope as a boy, yet somehow seems like a familiar dream."

Nephrite said, "That is because you have seen it before, or at least a shadow, in every temple. The spaces ancient men built to honor their gods with sacrifices and fire surely were in imitation of such a place as this." He looked around himself, uttering in awe, "It must be quite old."

"As old as mankind," said a new voice, gentle and clear and mellifluous, and the chamber's occupants bowed their heads. The four kings, on the other hand, looked up. "As old as civilization itself."

Slowly but without unnecessary deliberation, a woman entered wearing a gown so silvery white it seemed to have been made out of the same material as the hall. It draped elegantly over her long legs and trailed behind her, moving with each graceful step like one of the pillars around them brought to life beneath a layer of rippling gauze as fine as sea foam. Her arms and neck were bare and slender, her skin fair yet warm; her hair that was like spun silver trailed down her back to the train of her gown in so many loops and knots like a Celtic border; and her face recalled the faces of Aphrodite and Kannon that no sculptor could quite do honor to: her large, piercing eyes were deep pools of tenderness and wisdom, her small mouth the epitome of chastity though the voice that issued from it was the sound of creation, the whole effect ancient and eternally young. A dark-haired woman who seemed to be of the same race as Artemis followed her with eyes downcast, and none needed any introduction to know the one who preceded her was Serenity, the Queen of the Moon Kingdom.

"Your Majesty," Endymion said, bowing low.

Kunzite and Jadeite did the same, though their gestures did not seem quite so humble. The other two stood too transfixed to do much but stare.

The Queen acknowledged the Prince and his four kings with a smile. One look was all she needed to be direct, and intimate.

"More than five thousand years this palace dates back," she said measuredly. "More than five millennia of my ancestors' rule has been from this very room. When Earthmen were still young and ignorant of the world, my grandmothers and their brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, stood in their stone circles and taught them mathematics and the written language through which man might become steward of his world, and from which all great technological achievements have come. In return, they were worshiped as gods in places much like this—just as you said, Nephrite."

Zoisite felt his comrade stiffen slightly beside him at his name being spoken by that astral creature. Serenity moved to stand before her couch, but she dismissed it with a look and faced them standing instead.

"Men erected their places of worship on mountaintops both natural and of their own making as though to reach the sun and moon themselves, for in the collective subconscious of their civilizations were the memories of that early time when mankind was in its infancy, buried deep within their minds. But, content to remain slaves to their religion, they invariably failed. That is, until Earth pushed its intelligence and ingenuity to its limits to reach out in earnest for Space once again, not as worshiper but as a creator itself."

She smiled fondly to herself, then reached out her hands in welcome to the four kings.

"Our two kingdoms' great relationship has just begun to come full circle in what has been foretold as the Silver Millennium thanks in part to Master Nephrite and Master Zoisite."

The two in question, already surprised that the Queen of the Moon should be showing deference to them, were even more startled when she spoke their names with such gratitude, and fought the instinct to turn and look at one another, as though needing confirmation they were not asleep dreaming.

"It is because of your invention of a new, more powerful and more efficient spaceship engine that travel between the Earth and the Moon, and indeed between all our worlds has been greatly improved. Now that our peoples can move between kingdoms with greater ease and convenience, we are in a position to strengthen our relationship with Earth and her people like we have never been before."

At that the woman who had accompanied the Queen into the hall took up a golden tray and held it out patiently for the Queen, who beckoned for a still stunned Nephrite and Zoisite to approach.

"Lord-General Nephrite, Emperor of the Kingdom of the West, Chief Astronomical Adviser to Endymion, Crown Prince of the Earth," she said as she took one silver medal at a time from the tray and affixed them to the breasts of the two kings; "And Lord-General Zoisite, Emperor of the Kingdom of the South and Vice-Minister of Agriculture, on behalf of the Moon and the planetary kingdoms of Outer Space, for your achievements in space-faring technology and its betterment of all mankind, you have my sincerest gratitude."

Zoisite hardly knew how to conduct himself. All the experience in various lords and ladies' houses could not prepare one for meeting Queen Serenity herself, let alone proving to her one's gratitude. Not wanting to make fools of themselves, he and Nephrite could only manage a, "Thank you, Your Majesty," and a humble bow as they returned to their places beside their prince.

Zoisite flashed his comrades a smile clandestinely, barely able to contain his pleasure at being granted such an honor. He felt certain one or both of them must have known and said nothing, which would have been typical: Kunzite who was like a black hole for secrets, Jadeite because he wanted to see the shock on his comrades' faces. Zoisite could not be sure if, when Nephrite did not return his smile, he disapproved or was merely much better at maintaining a composure of solemnity.

"Now that credit has been given where it is due," the Queen resumed, taking her seat on the throne gracefully, "the late Prince's officers must be curious as to why I have called for an audience with his son and his generals, though I expect you four do not harbor that same ignorance. Is it not only natural, only my right to know those who will have such impact on my own daughter's kingdom in the millennium to come with my own eyes, to hear them with my own ears and speak to them face-to-face?"

As she spoke, and as Zoisite listened with his fellows, neither party could have anticipated the exact nature of that impact, though perhaps Bunbo, seated behind his master among other Earth patriots, experienced some sort of premonition at her choice of words—perhaps nothing more than an ominous sense, but a sense nonetheless.

"I only regret," Serenity continued, "that the circumstances under which we meet are overshadowed by the concerns brought to the surface by the recent nova event. Let us hope that it is not a portent of ill things to come, for such are old concerns and only dangerous if we allow them to be; and that through our efforts during this visit we can work toward stabilizing all our hearts from fear and suspicion, so that we may better achieve peace and cooperation for a thousand years to come. After one thousand years of isolation, gradually communication between Earth and Outer Space is being restored. Now let us throw open those doors that continue to separate our great civilizations, and step together into the future."

—o—

When the council was called to an end and the Queen had departed for her chambers, and Endymion had excused himself from his officers, Artemis rose to join them, a wide grin on his face. "Well, what did you think of the Queen?" were the first words to leave his mouth.

"As wonderful as I ever remembered," Jadeite said, to which Nephrite shook his head and concurred: "She is a goddess."

"Well, as close to one as any can be, I suppose," said Artemis. "But they say the same about you four and your Prince."

"Yes, but they are not a thousand years old," said the woman who had accompanied the Queen as she came up beside him. "Nor even as old as you or I, Artemis. It is only natural to feel a bit overwhelmed at first glance."

The stranger, like Artemis, was long of body, almost as though she had been stretched out, and her hair was a deep indigo like India ink, the expression in her almost unnaturally wide eyes quite warm and unguarded. "Well, aren't you going to introduce me?" she chided Artemis.

It made him blush. "Of course! I was just going to do that. . . . This is Zoisite of the Southern Kingdom and Nephrite of the Western Kingdom," he said as she extended her hand for the two to kiss. "Sirs, this lovely young woman is Luna, personal attendant to the Queen and her daughter Princess Serenity—and my future betrothed if all goes well."

Luna rolled her eyes. "He is always saying that," she told Nephrite and Zoisite as though Artemis could not hear, "but _he_ is the one afraid to propose."

"All in good time, my dear. These things mustn't be rushed into. I believe you remember Kunzite and Jadeite."

"It's been a long time," Kunzite said as Jadeite took her hand and bent to kiss it with a rakish flourish.

"I should say so," said Luna. "My, how you two have grown! Jadeite, when I saw you last I think you hardly came up to my waist."

"It's true," Jadeite said as an aside to Nephrite and Zoisite. "I used to be very short for my age."

"As opposed to when?" Zoisite joked, and received a playful punch in the shoulder as punishment.

"In any case," Luna continued, "you gentlemen are to be congratulated. Her Majesty has bestowed upon you her highest honor second only to her daughter's hand in marriage; and while none of you have a hope of winning that, it is no simple feat to have made yourselves in the debt of Her Majesty." Her fingers were so delicate they looked as though they might break from any touch harder than the light touch she gave the medal on Nephrite's breast. Hanging from a ribbon of a hue of indigo that was difficult to describe was a silver crescent moon, in the cradle of which rested a small winged figure from whose outstretched hands the ribbon was strung. "Even if she were to knight you in her kingdom's service, it would not be so great as this."

"Now, my dear . . ." Artemis looked strangely nervous as he turned to her, chiding, "It would be a very grave thing should what you speak of ever happen—"

But Luna waved him off. "I only mean I hope the young gentlemen appreciate what they have been given. They will be considered heroes in their homeland."

"If only I could be so sure of that," Zoisite said. "Earthmen have seen so many gold ornaments of their own making they would fail to see the significance of these silver ones."

"We, however, will always treasure them as they were meant to be treasured," Nephrite finished for him. "The Queen's gratitude shall not be taken lightly."

They turned to leave the great hall of the throne room, and as the group walked through the forest of pillars, Artemis said, "You four will dine with us this afternoon, won't you? —Oh, and Beryl too. It is not often we are able to leave the Moon, and we should like very much to hear news of your various kingdoms—from the horse's mouth, as I believe the Earth expression goes."

"Your kind sure are sticklers for stories and opinions," Jadeite remarked lightly.

But Artemis was prevented from replying by a feminine voice calling Kunzite's name. As it echoed off the high ceiling, they looked up to see a young woman with flowing blond hair—no more than an adolescent girl, though her youthful appearance did not bely her true age—running toward them from the direction of the entrance. Her delicate shoes clicked hard on the polished stone floors, and her skirts bounced back and forth as she struggled to hold them up and run at the same time—as though, if it were up to her, she would have neither.

When she reached them, she squealed and threw her arms about Kunzite's neck, and he twirled her once around before setting her feet upon the ground. When she went to kiss his mouth, however, he tilted his head in deference to his companions and said, "My Venus. How good it is to see you again."

"Oh, Kunzite." She seemed not at all taken aback by his momentary rejection. "When I heard you had arrived I could not wait to see you any longer. And now I hear you've been here for a few Earth days already, and you did not think to call me?"

"I wanted to surprise you."

Venus pouted, and Jadeite had to chuckle to himself. Kunzite would say such a thing, though the way he behaved in public, one would hardly take him as the type to like surprises.

"And here I thought you weren't interested in me any longer," Venus said. "You were awfully cold last time we met on Earth."

"That was because you and the Princess were not supposed to be there!" Luna said. "What was he supposed to do? Sweep you off your feet and say, 'Oh, yes, my princess, since you've come all this way: please, stay for supper'?"

"Well, that would have been a start."

Jadeite watched Zoisite's reaction to the newcomer carefully. He had become attached to Kunzite; that much Jadeite knew for certain. That could be dangerous. But if his comrade was upset at all he hid it remarkably well behind an unreadable smile.

"Hey, my lady," Jadeite said amiably, eager to change the subject, "did my princess come in with you? Not that I expected her to beat down my door or jump into my arms, but a greeting for a childhood friend would have only been ladylike."

Venus smiled triumphantly at this. She turned her head away from Jadeite, as though in solidarity with his absent love. "She hasn't come because she hasn't forgiven you."

"Still? But that was over a decade ago! We were kids: I didn't know what I was doing!"

Nephrite laughed aloud, and even Luna could not help joining the Prince's officers in a chuckle at Jadeite's expense.

"Funny, I think that's exactly what she said," said Venus. "'Jadeite, that stupid-head. He thinks he's God's gift to women,' or something like that."

"You were a charmer even then, eh?" said Zoisite sarcastically, grinning at him.

Jadeite pretended he didn't notice. "She called me stupid-head? Well, if anything, at least I'm glad to hear she's still the same old Mars I know and love."

An image of her cold beauty and long raven hair that recalled the heroines of his country's literature floated to the fore of his mind. Her name had seemed fitting to him then: she was belligerent as the Roman god of war, and as fiery as the Japanese name for her planet. When she had been cruel he had loved her all the more; but that was more than a decade before. Even though she was some years older than he, she had looked no older than a girl of ten. Now that she had matured, he wondered how the years would have improved her beauty. Compared to how he suddenly desired to see her, his reminisces aboard the spaceship had been but empty ruminations for show.

Venus slipped her arm under Kunzite's and, chatting about something he probably paid less attention to than he showed, led the way out of the hall. Following on their heels, Jadeite stayed abreast of Zoisite, who continued to hold an unreadable smile at all that was said. Can he really be as unmoved as he appears? Jadeite wondered. If he is, then one thing I can say for him, he is stronger than I.

—o—

As she passed through the halls of the Moon Palace, Serenity spied beneath a far off colonnade, looking out over the gardens beside the sea, the two figures of her daughter and Prince Endymion. The lines of their separate bodies seemed to lean toward each other as if in response to some gravity exerted by the other's heart—some strong force pulling them together that even now they resisted still fearing themselves under scrutiny, unable even here to throw off the fetters of the responsibilities placed on them. She knew not what they discussed as they gazed into one another's eyes. However, she did hear it clearly when the Prince said with tenderness, "Selena," and took her daughter's chin in his hand and kissed her softly.

She turned away, unable to bear watching them any further. From deep within her, memories of a not so distant love affair resurfaced. A mortal man grown old, but his face did not show it because of the long lunar days he had spent with her.

Selene. That was the name that man had bestowed upon her as well.

She recalled a time when her daughter was only an infant she had gone to the prayer room in the heart of the palace with its great Crystal Tower, under which was concealed the main computer that maintained the vitals of her world. The officials in the Moon Kingdom had been surprised that she had given birth to the child after carrying her only a few years. They must be pressing times, they said, if the Princess were needed so soon. It was with this in mind that she went to see the oracle of Pluto, who had summoned her with important news: a revelation of what was to come for their two kingdoms.

_"The Prince of Earth shall soon sire a son by his earthly wife. He will be called Endymion."_

Serenity could not help her gasp. A son! Another Endymion, a new heir to the throne of the Middle Kingdom that had eluded its reigning prince for so long. Still it seemed so soon. She had to remind herself that the Prince was, after all, an Earthling and mortal, but it took a long moment for the news to sink in. Yet she held her tongue, and waited, kneeling, for the hologram of the woman that rose from a diadem on the floor, her identity shrouded by her long hair, to continue.

_"That son is to be the long awaited one."_

"The one who will unite the Earth into one kingdom?" Serenity said breathlessly.

The oracle nodded slowly.

Oh, how she had dreamed of hearing just that. Seven hundred years had passed since she had watched the last attempt to unite the Earth into one empire crumble and collapse like a tree devoured from the inside—seven hundred years since she had seen her own mother shed tears for the end of an era she had spent her long life building. Her beloved Alexander, her Julius, her Marcus Aurelius—all vanished in the sands of time, as slowly had her family around her until only her daughter was left to bear the royal bloodline, and the Silver Imperium Crystal it protected. Now there was hope again, in Serenity's own lifetime.

My daughter is blessed, she thought in her heart of hearts, as she closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer. Blessed that she might live in such times as these.

But that happiness was to be short-lived.

_"When the children of the two kingdoms find completion with one another,"_ the oracle continued, _"only then will the fractured nations of Earth be united as one Earth Kingdom. At that time, the countries of the Earth and the Moon shall ascend to the Heavenly Throne in divine union and rule the Solar System as one."_

Serenity started. "But . . . but that cannot be. It is not possible that they should fall in love, if that is what you mean. . . . The two kingdoms were supposed to rule together in tandem, side by side!"

_"I am merely a messenger of Time,"_ said the other, in that emotionless voice that sounded at once young and old beyond its owner's years. _"I can only report what was revealed to me; I do not interpret. It is up to Time to do that."_

"But they mustn't fall in love." It would be wrong.

_"If they do not, the Earth Kingdom can never be born from the chaos that keeps the planet fractured. The two destinies are intertwined and inseparable. That is the simple, undeniable truth."_ Her voice lowered to a whisper, and she spoke the first heartfelt words she had during all this time: _"I am sorry, my Queen."_

Intertwined and inseparable. . . . Those words reached Serenity out of the past now as she watched her daughter and the Prince, chewing her lower lip. What should she do—what _could_ she? They looked so happy together. Was it fair to destroy that happiness, even in the name of truth? But if she were to do that, then the hope of millennia before her for one united Kingdom of Earth would be all for naught.

She made up her mind. She would keep silent for now, even though in the meantime their love would only deepen. Perhaps it would hurt nothing if they never learned the truth about whence they came. Let them remain this way until their final breaths, she wished, and never know the pain of a broken heart.

—o—

"What, then, to do about the supernova observed some months ago?" came the inevitable question in conference between the officers of Serenity's and Endymion's courts, and those of the planetary kingdoms' some days later. Inevitable, it seemed, because Serenity had all but refused to speak of it herself.

Since that first meeting with the Queen their days and nights had been filled with unending sunlight, the sky the same dark shade of blue, immaculate but for a few tenuous clouds above the distant mountains on the horizon beyond the sea. An Earthman would think it made for a difficult sleeping schedule to grow accustomed to, until one understood the free ways of the Moon people; and, after all, when in Rome, one should do as the Romans do.

The people of the Moon saw the long stretches of daylight as the time to work and recharge, like reptiles that sit out in the sun in order to restore their energy. They slept when they were tired and ate when they were hungry, and in between worked toward maintaining the balance of the solar system in small, informal brainstorming sessions in the palace's forum like this one or formal conferences that had to be planned in advance, giving delegates time to travel from as far away as the outer planets. It seemed to the casual observer that other than the issue of time, the spacemen saw little difference between the two.

"What indeed?" said Zoisite. His pose was casual as the atmosphere, one knee bent to his chest, a cup of coffee near his elbow. His comrades sat nearby, occasionally taking from the food that had been set near their cushions, occupying one section of the circle formed by those gathered along the floor of the hall, most of the tiers of seats of which were empty except for a few spectators.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that there is not much we _can_ do about an event that is quite separate from our system and beyond our control."

"But surely," said a red-headed man of Artemis' race who was called Thoth, "the people of Earth are affected by the event nonetheless. In the first few months following the nova's appearance in the sky, the Middle Kingdom noted a decrease in rice and wheat exports—"

"Which had very little if anything to do with the nova," Kunzite put in quickly, shooting Zoisite a glance—but whether in his defense or as a warning Zoisite could not be sure.

"Sure," Thoth agreed; "we've heard of the agricultural reforms being pushed through the Capital at the moment. But that was not all that was affected, was it? Restrictions on travel, especially to the North and West and for extraterrestrial vessels, a sharp increase in crime both inside the Middle Kingdom's jurisdiction and outside of it—"

"An extremely temporary spike that has since leveled off," said a Moonman in the Earth's defense.

"But telling nonetheless. Furthermore, we are told of communications between regional governors in the Eastern provinces indicating feelings of hostility toward Outer Space. How are we supposed to forge close relations with Earth in the face of what is quite obviously an epidemic of suspicion and superstition in its kingdoms?"

Thoth earned some nodded heads from others on his side, most of whom appeared to be of his own race or carried its blood within them. Even Artemis gave the Earth delegation a look of reluctant agreement; and how could he not, having experienced the likes of Rhombus's distrust first-hand?

It was Governor Prism, a representative of Earth who had been living on the Moon longer than Zoisite had even known about the Middle Kingdom, who spoke up in dissent. "However, we cannot dismiss the nations of Earth out of hand as superstitious, can we?" he said. "The Moon should know by its own example that one must be careful making generalizations of the actions of a vocal few. There are strong factions of spacemen who fear the nova as a portent of future disaster to be avoided—including, if I'm not mistaken, yours, Master Thoth."

The man in question turned up his nose at that. "So what if that is what I believe? Is it not only wise to be prepared? Queen Serenity must be informed, even if she chooses to ignore our warnings. The advent of the Silver Millennium may be nigh, but there are still enemies in our midsts."

"I am curious," Beryl said, "just who Queen Serenity considers her enemies."

"No, it's true," Kunzite said, earning him a curious look from Beryl, and a disapproving one from Nephrite. "While I would not use such a grave word as 'enemy' to refer to such persons, I could not help but witness the stagnation of the old court myself in the Capital. There are officers from the days of the old Prince's service whose seniority carries great power who would stand in the way of progress between our two kingdoms if given the chance. I do not suggest they be demoted—after all, they have worked their entire lives for their positions and command a certain degree of respect—but we should be wary of them, as the responsibility of governing the new Earth Kingdom ultimately falls to Prince Endymion and thusly to us."

"Master Kunzite speaks with much prudence," Prism concurred. "Masters Rhombus and Oval especially command an incredible number of supporters in positions of influence throughout the empire."

Jadeite nodded. "I take no pride in saying so, but my own father being one of them, I know first hand how deep the roots of divisiveness run. Our situation on Earth is a delicate one that we are all working hard to control so that it may lean in the favor of the majority."

"What we need," Zoisite jumped in, "is new blood. Young scholars filled with optimism and armed with knowledge. Young men and women who look to the Silver Millennium with high hopes must be cultivated if we are to succeed—they must be given a chance to prove themselves, especially those on the Middle Kingdom's fringes who do not have the same access to an imperial education as do those raised in nobility."

"Yes," Artemis agreed, making a fist. "It is the Moon Kingdom way: a democracy where an individual's value is based on his merits, not his birth."

"Perhaps they can even receive some of their training on the Moon, or in the inner planets . . . In an exchange program of some sort," Luna said with a tentative look toward Prism for support.

"The old ministers cannot hold office forever," Zoisite continued, for once without a hint of sarcasm. "They are, after all, Earthlings. I wish to reassure Master Thoth that once old age forces them to resign their posts, new ministers open to reform and unafraid of spacemen will take their places."

"Open to reform," a new speaker, this one clearly human, echoed; "just like the Southern Kingdom's agricultural ministry, which sources tell us is singly responsible for the sudden rise in the price of grains exported to the planetary kingdoms?"

Zoisite was only too eager to take the bait. He smiled as he replied, "A rise in price that was not soon enough in coming."

That had many of the Moonmen riled, and suddenly several of them were talking at once, some incredulous at his audacity to say such a thing, others clearly sensitive to what the higher prices spelled for those they represented. Despite their talk of democracy and openness, the Moonmen were quick to reveal just how comfortably set in their ways they were. It was Governor Prism who held up a hand for silence. Even among spacemen, his thoughts were respected despite belonging to a patriot of Earth. "Please, gentlemen, let him continue," he said, and he seemed impatient for the other to do so by the look on his face. "I am confident Master Zoisite has a reason behind his assertion."

"Indeed, I do. You will all, of course, have been aware that while the last few decades have seen a spike in the production of staple crops in the Middle Kingdom, especially in its southern territories, its population has also greatly increased due to the surplus of food and generally improved quality of life that new technology—much of it a result of increased communication with the Moon and planetary kingdoms—has brought about.

"So, yes," Zoisite continued, "it is true that our scientists and holy men (the lines between which blur more and more with each coming year), and even the peasant farmers have accomplished more toward improving farming techniques and crop yields in the last two decades than in all the last two millennia; and in doing so they have managed to feed not only themselves but the Moon Kingdom and the outer worlds as well. But this cannot be sustained. The more enlightened our constituents become as a result of the Moon Kingdom's encouragement and our own ingenuity, the less they are willing to remain enslaved to Outer Space as they once were."

"Then you blame this problem on the planetary kingdoms," Luna reiterated, but without any of the indignation that might have colored Thoth's words.

"What I am saying," Zoisite said carefully, "is that the Moon Kingdom must reap what it sows. Where it scatters the seeds of democracy, it must be prepared for democracy to take root and spring up. Kingdoms once divided and at war with one another now embrace a sense of unity, of national purpose under the cooperation of our respective kingdoms and our respective worlds. It is not something Queen Serenity or any of her ministers can take away once it has been given, nor would they want to."

"The consequences would be disastrous to the entire system," Nephrite agreed with a nod.

"Then what do you suggest Outer Space do," said the Moonman who had baited Zoisite, "if you believe this is a trend that will only continue to worsen?"

By his tone, he still seemed to think Zoisite's efforts within his kingdom futile; the young man just smiled at that thought.

"Actually, if you will indulge me, I have been developing just such a plan for some time. Since my arrival on the Moon, I have had access to information on the geological and economic states of the various planetary kingdoms that was unavailable to me before; and I do believe the best measure to counteract a decrease in exports from the Middle Kingdom would be to start producing a grain crop in earnest on other planets for their own use. At first I considered the Moon as a primary location for its rich volcanic soil, but without hundreds of years of acclimation, the plants would not tolerate the long stretches of darkness or lack of seasons, nor do we know how they would react to the lesser gravity here; and I think all would agree we do not have the luxury of centuries on this matter."

"What do you suggest, then?"

"The planet Venus is also rich in fertile, volcanic soil and has a stable climate conductive to the cultivation of grain. Also, its size and day length are comparable to those of Earth, making it an ideal location." At the low chatter that inevitably followed, Zoisite allowed himself a lopsided grin. "You may protest all you like, and I anticipate just that, but you gentlemen of the Moon, of the planets, must agree that my proposal is only fair. The Venusians eat the food Earthlings grow. Is it too much to ask them to make it as well?"

There was another uproar of outrage from the lunar and Venusian parties, who—though their vehemence would evaporate into their usual gentility outside the forum—could not on principle relinquish their pride at what they saw as an offense against their respective kingdoms. (Thoth himself had embraced the kings heartily upon their arrival, congratulating the two on their achievements and welcoming them all into the chamber with the words "Sweet is the truth"; but in debate, he proved ruthless, even beyond its pursuit.) Nephrite snorted in amusement at the reaction; and Kunzite turned toward Zoisite, his brows knitted in surprise and lips pressed together in a tight line as he refrained from voicing his own feelings before the crowd.

Governor Prism responded with a forceful laugh, saying to Zoisite, "My, you have thought about this!"

An alien woman sitting beside Thoth looked up at his ejaculation. "Governor, you cannot tell us that you actually take stock in this proposal. Are you too so blinded to reason by patriotism as to side with them unquestionably on such a preposterous notion?"

"Why should it be preposterous?" the man in question said. "Master Zoisite is right about one thing: it is only fair. Whether it is right is yet to be decided, but one cannot preach words of equality and expect them not to stick. You are on Venus no longer and forget, Madam Astarte, that Earthlings are human too, not oxen to be hitched to a plow."

Astarte's face went red, and she raised her voice above the crowd: "We shall see what comes of these plans when my Princess hears of it."

"Yes, we will," Kunzite spoke calmly to her. "I will tell her myself, and I have no doubt she will consider Master Zoisite's ideas thoroughly and with an open mind when she hears how I support them myself."

Zoisite turned to him suddenly as the crowd erupted once more, Prism and some of the more level-headed of those gathered calling for calm and a change of subject—surprised at his comrade's defense that had seemed to arise out of nowhere. Kunzite met his gaze with his own gentle eyes.

"You could have warned me beforehand," he whispered to Zoisite when the rest had found a new and less sensitive topic of discussion. "Before springing such a thing on me out of the blue, before all these people. That wasn't fair."

Zoisite's smile felt cruel on his lips as he answered out of the corner of his mouth: "You would preach to me about fairness, Kunzite? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black." He turned his attention back to the other for a moment to mutter: "Do you really intend to put my proposal before Venus?"

Whether at his question, or something in his voice, Kunzite appeared uncharacteristically uncomfortable. "I said I would, didn't I? But why would you not discuss it with _me_ before today?"

"You have your secrets. Am I not allowed to keep some of my own?" Zoisite told him simply and finally, before he turned his attention back to the discussion presently occupying the floor.

II.Nocturne

When a knock came at his door, Zoisite looked up from his attempts to tie his bow tie at his reflection in the mirror, and gave up with a sigh. "Bunbo, is that you?" he called.

The door creaked open and it was Artemis who answered. "He's already gone to watch the first-comers to the ball."

"Without his master?" Zoisite pretended to disapproval.

"I thought you might have fallen asleep or some such thing when you were nowhere to be seen."

"Nonsense. How could I sleep amid this excitement?"

Artemis entered and closed the door behind him. He had exchanged the conservative dress he had exhibited in audiences with the Queen for something a bit more revealing, and unequivocally alien. He wore a white suit that fit close about his waist, the tails of which crossed just below his bellybutton, which was bared, ending in clasps that attached to the thighs of his loose trousers, forming pleats where they pulled the fabric. It matched his long hair, which was unrestrained except by a feline mask that rested on top of his head.

He wore the outfit like a second skin, however, and if anything was impressed by Zoisite's tuxedo—the first he had worn since those days of his adolescence spent in Shakoukai's tutelage. "Ah," he chuckled as he stood back to once-over Zoisite, "_now_ you look human."

"Except for this damnable tie." Zoisite indicated the strip of silk lying around his neck. "Have you ever seen anything more useless? I'm beginning to suspect it was invented for the sole purpose of infuriating lusty young princes only too eager to claim themselves a dance partner."

"Which you four are anything but? Is that what's been taking you so long? Allow me." Artemis stepped forward and deftly knotted the tie for him. Standing as close to Zoisite as he was, the differences between him and Kunzite that blurred together at a distance were clear and obvious. His incredibly wide eyes gave him a boyish, androgynous look despite his voice and age, the angularity of his frame lacking the softness of Earthmen. His bare fingers felt like kid gloves as they brushed against the underside of Zoisite's chin. He finished with the bow tie, gave it a final little tug, and patted Zoisite on his jacket's lapel. "There," he said. "Now you are perfect. Have you your mask?"

The invitation sent to Zoisite's house had been for a masquerade ball. If local talk could be trusted, however, the masquerade would be only the first part of a celebration of feasts and dancing to last for a whole Earth week from the time of the first quarter Earth through the immeasurable lazy hours of lunar twilight until the Earth reached its fullest and the Moon Palace descended into its darkest hour of night. It was lunar tradition that daylight was for work and rest, and the night for the pleasures that reassured men that they were alive. How the Moonmen could sustain celebrations for the length of seven Earth days Zoisite was eager to see, for it sounded like something told of about the gods in their eternity, and an impossibility for fragile mortal men who might die of happiness before the end of it.

Moreover, this evening the people of the Moon would have another reason for jubilation, as it was the first time they could boast of hosting not only the Prince of Earth but all four of his generals as well. Wherever he went Zoisite heard talk of the Silver Millennium that Serenity had mentioned at their first meeting. Whether it was an actual period of a thousand years or something more metaphorical, all agreed that a new and glorious age was just beginning in which peace and wisdom would triumph over ignorance and strife. That he would be a crucial part of that brought him joy he could not adequately express, and so he kept it hidden except for the smile that did not seem to want to part from his lips since his arrival here more than two weeks ago.

Zoisite retrieved his own mask from the vanity table, as well as the white spider chrysanthemum that rested beside it. The latter he slipped into the slit in his lapel, thinking momentarily of how the flowers would be blooming in the Middle Kingdom again, and how far he had come.

"It is interesting," Zoisite remarked as he glanced over his reflection once more, straightening his jacket and the loose strands of hair that fell in a precise manner from the ribbon that held the rest back, "that we four should hide our identity now when we have been here for two weeks already, holding council with all manner of officials who could surely spot us at a glance."

"Oh, but that is all par for the course," Artemis said grinning. "Besides, there are some who still do not know you."

At his knowing tone of voice, Zoisite turned. "And whom might you be referring to?"

"I won't say any more. However, perhaps you have caught sight of the royal vessel that landed in the Palace some hours ago?"

He looked out the window, as though the ship were still outside somewhere to be seen, and true to his word refused to say anything more on the matter.

—o—

Beneath the rosy sky of sunset the revelers gathered, their chandelier one of a billion stars and the third quarter Earth. The sun sinking below the horizon hit the tenuous clouds that fanned out from the western hills in striations of gold and copper that were reflected in a wine-red sea, whose waves glinted in the waning light like they had been scattered with silver coins. The silver palace, too, was cast in a soft, pink light, its crystal domes shimmering gold, its shadows long.

On the terraces and in the courtyard, among the white statuary and the dark greens and blues of sculpted cypress and juniper that for a while were violet, and the fragrantly flowering vines and bushes of the palace's hanging gardens—those of Earth whose blossoms were laying themselves to rest, and those of the Moon opening under the soft caress of the last rays of sunlight—spacemen met and congregated, drinks in hand though it was still early in the evening, or danced to soft strains of music. In accordance with the occasion, almost as a rule the men wore tuxedos and white masks, while the women came in white gowns that glowed strangely in the twilight and hid their identities behind black masks.

Consequently they all seemed to blur together in Zoisite's mind: the women he danced with, their age and individuality hidden from him by their very nature as much as by any mask, and the figures who moved about them as they twirled round the dance floor like black and white pieces on a go board. The music and the motion, though executed with such sophistication, swept him along in their steady rhythm to the point he could no longer tell if the girl in his arms had been there before—like a dream that continues to repeat itself no matter how many times we tell ourselves it is only a dream.

Lost in that atmosphere, it seemed that hours must have gone by and still the sky had not deepened when he was forced to take a break to catch his breath. Begging his dance partner's pardon, he found himself next to Artemis and Luna, pretending to pussycat and lion respectively and giddy as young lovers could be, and Kunzite and the princess of Venus, the latter of whom clutched Kunzite's arm about her shoulder. The neckline of her gown seemed unnecessarily low, and Zoisite could not help noticing as he had not had the chance to before how aptly Venus was developed.

"Don't tire yourself out yet, Zoisite!" Artemis warned him, laughing, when he saw the other let out a deep breath. "The night is still young and the celebrations only beginning."

"Me, tire?" But Zoisite huffed out a chuckle. "I'm just getting started. This is what Providence prepared me for in the womb."

"But ask back in a few hours and see if he is still on his feet," Kunzite joked.

The slight smile he gave Zoisite, however, as he gazed at him fondly was as warm as anything he had given four years ago, when their acquaintance was still fresh and blissfully ignorant. For a moment, it made Zoisite wonder if it were wise to show such a smile in public, and especially before Venus; but it was, after all, only a smile.

Zoisite's own was crooked on his lips. "Speak for yourself, Kunzite."

"Ah, but I've been here before. I know what to expect, how to pace myself."

Zoisite pretended not to hear. "The feasts of the gods on Olympus could not have been as grand as this," he said, "but never underestimate the endurance of a mortal. We may not be as inured to decadence, surrounded by the pains of existence as we are, but perhaps to make up for it we are so much more skilled at enjoying ourselves."

"And at overdoing it," Kunzite laughed—again, warmly.

"We'll see how you Earth boys do without the sun to revitalize you," Venus said in jest, but her joke fell flatly upon the two kings, even if their steady smiles did not show it.

Thankfully, the hush that descended upon the crowd as heads turned toward the terrace above the courtyard saved them from an awkward moment.

A feminine figure was descending slowly down a grand, curved staircase that had been laid with a crimson carpet for the festivities. Her gait was as measured and as graceful and her gown as diaphanous as though she were one of those goddesses the five had been joking about only seconds ago. That and her appearance reminded Zoisite of how the absent Queen had moved and looked at his first audience with her, but it was as an imperfect copy. With her obvious youth, her golden hair in pigtails, though as long as her train, and her demure aura, she lacked the radiance, the wisdom and authority that Serenity had exuded with every step and gesture and glance, though the other revelers were transfixed upon her figure as though she were something to be worshiped.

It was then that he remembered that he had seen this girl before: She was the same one he had glimpsed on a balcony his first night on the Moon when, sleepless, he had gone for a stroll out of doors to try and clear his head. They had not been introduced, but only a fool would fail to recognize her as the Queen's teenage daughter, the princess Serenity.

In a short cape thrown over one shoulder and simple white mask, Endymion waited on a step below her; and when she joined him he took her hand tenderly in his own. The crowds parted before them as they moved toward the open courtyard, and the orchestra struck up a romantic waltz that was appropriate for the lovers' first dance of the evening.

"The Princess is splendent tonight, isn't she?" Venus said when she saw Zoisite's curious look. She tilted her chin in the direction of the young dancers. Around them, revelers murmured quiet praise.

"Endymion certainly thinks so," Zoisite said aloud to himself, without seeming to realize he had done so.

Venus apparently took him for sarcastic. "Of course. Can't you see how they are in love?"

Trying to spy the couple over the heads of those that stood in their way, she clutched her own hand to her chest, but none of the others noticed as their eyes were turned the same way. "Watching them on the dance floor," Venus said as though she could at that very moment, "you would swear you were seeing the very Earth and Moon rotating round one another. One day that is how they will be."

Zoisite thought he knew what she meant, but it still took a conscious effort to swallow his retort. How would he look if he corrected the girl on the scientific inaccuracy of a poetic observation?

He turned to her and said instead, before he quite knew what he was doing: "Would you care to join them, Princess?"

Venus looked surprised at his slight bow. "A-are you asking me to dance?" she said uncertainly.

"What else? Would that really be so bad?"

Her glance at Kunzite found no disapproval. He only raised his eyebrows slightly, surprised himself.

"Don't worry," Zoisite said as she tentatively laid her hand in his waiting palm, "I won't lure you away from him." But if his glance at Kunzite were telling, it was not the other's approval that he wanted.

Kunzite ignored him coolly, turning instead to Luna with a bow of his own: "My lady, if you please. . . ."

"Why, I'd be glad to," the woman in question said, and Kunzite pulled her away, leaving Artemis to wonder what had just happened. "And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?" he called after them.

Seeing her partner vanish into the crowd, Venus uttered a reluctant, "All right," and allowed herself to be led to the dance floor.

Her demeanor remained cool even when they reached it and she put her hand on Zoisite's shoulder, pretending to ignore the one he laid on her waist. As they slipped into the rhythm of the dance, her eyes searched out Kunzite as best they could; but Zoisite did not mind: when they spun around he did the same.

At one of these points, Venus misstepped and they both stumbled for a moment before regaining their places. "Watch your step," Zoisite said more out of instinct than anything, but Venus seemed to read something more out of it; and the grip that steadied her was not exactly gentle.

"You know, from afar I had you pegged as a gentleman," she said in a low voice, "but I guess appearances can be deceiving."

That was quite sudden. Zoisite looked hard at her. "I didn't think I would have reason to say it, but likewise, Princess."

Venus scowled. "Then why ask me to dance?"

"Because it would be rude of me not to," Zoisite told her with a rakish smile; "and for a moment there I was inexplicably compelled to steal you away from Kunzite. This may be my only chance to do so." And this way, at least, they could not embarrass themselves in front of Kunzite. He paused for a moment, then said, "Why? You don't like me, Princess Venus?"

Her scowl softened but remained nonetheless. "I did not have much of an opinion one way or the other before—I thought that if Kunzite spoke so highly of you, you could not be too bad—but that's changed recently as more and more your icy manner reminds me of all the things that irritate me about Jadeite. The insincere things."

Zoisite laughed.

For a moment he allowed himself to wonder what his comrade would think to hear that. Zoisite had hardly seen him all evening, only managing a few words before Jadeite disappeared again with the raven-haired Princess Mars on his arm, whatever fight they had laughed about earlier seemingly long forgotten.

"And . . ." Her blue eyes flashed at him behind her black mask. "If I didn't know it was ludicrous I would have said you were jealous."

"Me, jealous?" Zoisite forced a laugh. "Where would you get an idea like that?"

"I don't know. Just the way Kunzite talks about you is all. Like when he came to me with that proposal of yours, to grow rice on my planet."

"And?" Feeling suddenly bold, as though she were confessing to being in lust rather than mentioning so mundane a subject, he twirled her fiercer for just a moment, but it was enough to take her aback. "What did you think? You don't believe I was singling out your planet because of _you_, I hope."

Venus hesitated before answering, made uncomfortable by his sudden vigor. "Honestly. Must we really discuss business at a time like this?"

"What time like the present?"

She sighed. "I don't think it's such a bad idea. I just wonder how you intend it all to work. Where you expect the labor to come from, for instance—"

"Then you will consider it."

"It does mean so much to Kunzite . . ." was all Venus could think of to say. But another young gentleman cut in, and she was only too eager to accept, and Zoisite was unable to discuss it any further.

He moved toward the fringes of the dance floor. He did not have to suffer alone for long, however, because Endymion approached him soon after, beaming as Zoisite rarely had the opportunity to see as of late, with Princess Serenity in tow. Endymion introduced them, and Zoisite almost forgot all about his earlier conceptions of a shy, unworldly girl when the princess without warning boldly asked him to dance. Zoisite could only accept graciously as was proper, and simply hope his prince was not offended.

Princess Serenity proved an easy-going and talkative girl one-on-one, energetic below her demure exterior. Zoisite was surprised, but pleasantly so, by how she eagerly asked him questions about his life on Earth and about his kingdom, and listened rapt to all he answered her. At the same time she danced with him to a lively andante, her footwork not artful but simply, and satisfactorily, responsive.

"Fascinating," she said at one point, in that candor of hers that—unlike so many other princesses—was unquestionably sincere, "how you've seen so much of the Earth in your lifetime already! I don't mind telling you quite frankly that I'm jealous."

"It is nothing to be envious of, really," he told her with a polite smile, but would not elaborate.

"But if only I could have such adventures myself. I would so love to see this country called Araby you speak of. They hardly allow me to go anywhere outside the Moon Palace, though."

"From what I've heard, Princess, it would seem you've had plenty of adventures on Earth already."

Her pale cheeks reddened slightly at his remark. "Does the entire Middle Kingdom know about that affair?"

"Only everyone within the Capital, I'm sure. . . . And, of course, those they've told."

"How embarrassing. . . ." But her eyes remained downcast for only a moment. "Well, you'll have more sympathy for me someday when you know for yourself what it's like."

"What what is like, Princess?"

She smiled quizzically. "True love. What other force would make someone completely unable to keep their feet on their own planet?"

"Yes, maybe someday I will," he agreed out of courtesy. He regarded this strange young woman in his arms who seemed in many ways so completely unlike her mother, and yet was the spitting image of the Queen—a walking, whirling contradiction. "Tell me, Princess," he said suddenly, "you seem quite a treasure to your people, so why is it I've been here almost a month and I've never met you before this night?"

"The Moon Palace is a larger place than most people realize," she said simply. "Two people could live in it for years without running into one another."

She could not have known how prophetic her words would seem to him later.

The number ended, and Zoisite returned the Princess to his Prince.

He rejoined Nephrite who was people-watching in a corner beside a banister, a glass of wine in his hand. Seeing him in the tux, and his thick curls lying glossily across his shoulders, brought back memories of their youth in India that were at once fond and embarrassing. If one thing had changed, he knew, it was his comrade's grace, both physically and socially. Hardly had he caught a glimpse of Nephrite this evening not in some girl's awestruck grip. Either he was hiding at the moment, or had simply been lucky not to be swept immediately away by another young contender.

"Zoisite," he called his old friend over with drink raised in a kind of salute. "How goes it?"

"How do you think? —No, on second thought don't answer that. You make it seem like you were asking me of my success on the hunt." A server carrying a tray passed by and offered Zoisite a drink.

"And why not?" Nephrite asked him. "Isn't that what these functions ultimately boil down to, the pursuit of a particular quarry?"

Zoisite smiled over the rim of his cup. "I see you've had no problem in that department. Or maybe the problem is being the quarry yourself. Have the hounds finally lost your scent? This is the first chance I've had to speak with you in hours, the way they keep you occupied."

Nephrite made a dismissive sound and shook his head. In the process, however, something caught his eye, and he said as though on second thought, "Though I think my luck might just now have improved."

As he leaned toward Zoisite to say that in a low tone of voice, Zoisite looked in the direction of whatever had caught his attention. Two girls were standing some distance away beyond the crowd, standing close to one another and speaking with conspiratorial looks in their eyes just as the two kings must have appeared to them to be doing—and though they wore white gowns and black masks like almost all the other female guests, Zoisite knew nonetheless that he had not seen them before this moment.

One was tall with strawberry-brown hair tied up in a fashionable knot. Her draping gown was long and spilled faithfully from the hollow of her throat down over the curves of her body. Her bared shoulders and arms hinted at an athletic physique that was hidden beneath it, but the effect was not at all incongruous. When she saw that she had caught the attentions of Nephrite and Zoisite, she cracked a broad grin that was open and inviting. It was a smile any man would be a fool to pass up, yet for the moment she was conveniently unattached.

But it was her companion who interested Zoisite the most. In comparison she was quite petite physically, almost to the point her figure might be called boyish, fair complexioned, and exuded a much more reserved manner that he found abruptly and inexplicably charming. That difference was reflected too in her dress, the skirt of which was wide and knee-length, the bodice trimmed with lace and white camellias, and the black gloves that matched her mask covered her elbows. Her hair was cut short above her shoulders and was a most unnatural and stunning shade of blue, like that dark and tranquil aquamarine of a deep, clean mountain pool. That tranquility was reflected in her expression as well—in her wide eyes that even at this distance seemed as though they could take in everything, and small, full lips that formed a more mysterious smile than her companion's.

She seemed like an angel to Zoisite, and that was not something he would admit to himself lightly. If he were to be logical, he could not say exactly what made that girl stand out from all the others he had met already. He simply knew he had to meet her, as though he felt himself caught in her gravitational field. He said to Nephrite, "Shall we go over and introduce ourselves?"

"Only if I get to dance with the tall one first," the other said.

Zoisite patted him once on the back. "No contest, my friend."

He took one last, long sip of wine and set his glass on the banister rail before following Nephrite across the courtyard to where the two girls stood.

"Good evening, ladies," Nephrite said when they had arrived. Instead of the customary bow, he flashed them a bright smile as he looked between them, saying, "I do hope we're not interrupting anything."

"Not at all," said the taller of the two girls in a rich voice. "My friend and I were just saying what a bore this function was. All the good dance partners must be absent today."

"Maybe you simply haven't run into them yet," Zoisite said, to which Nephrite added: "Then you won't mind that, noticing the two of you standing over here alone, we could not stand by and allow that travesty to continue any longer."

The taller woman extended her hand for Nephrite to take, and as he did so Zoisite said, "And speaking of travesties, how is it we've missed meeting such lovely young women as you two all evening long?"

"Our ship only arrived in the palace hours ago," the petite girl explained in a bright soprano. "We've been traveling from beyond the asteroid belt for weeks, so you'll have to forgive us our timing. We were lucky to have arrived for the first part of festivities as it was."

"So you say," said her companion, who seemed oblivious to her apologetic airs, "but I still believe our captain could have made better time."

"There's nothing to forgive at all," Zoisite spoke into the petite girl's eyes. "How can I say your timing is anything but impeccable if it allowed us to meet you two at this precise moment?"

"Do you dance, pilgrim?" Nephrite asked the taller one, who replied coyly, "Are you asking me to, sir?"

The shorter shot her an uncertain look. "But we have not been properly introduced."

"I shan't allow a technicality like that to keep me from enjoying myself," said the other, raising her chin. "Besides, therein lies the genius of the masquerade ball. Ignorance is bliss, and everyone is a stranger. Of course, I dance! And you'd better as well, none of this prancing around stuff. I don't go easy on beginners."

"Good. Neither do I," said Nephrite.

She took his hand with a gusto and led him toward an empty space where they could dance; and glancing after them, Zoisite turned to his companion and said, "Would you do me the honor, my princess?"

The denomination had more or less slipped out, though to Zoisite it seemed nothing less than appropriate; but the young woman's eyes seemed to widen behind her mask in slight surprise. She opened her mouth to say something, but thought better and closed it again in that same mysterious smile. In place of an answer, she proffered her hand and allowed Zoisite to lead her onto the floor on the others' heels.

Despite her show of hesitation, the girl's fingers slid easily between Zoisite's as they assumed the proper position, and his hand seemed to come to rest on her narrow waist like the two had been made for one another. The orchestra struck up a number with a quick tempo and Zoisite swept her along with it.

He could not have asked for a better partner. He did not know who she was, but she carried herself better, was more in-tune with the nuances of the music and the emotions and algorithms they conjured than either Venus or Princess Serenity had been. Despite her slight appearance, she matched his long stride step for step. She did not press too close like some of the more desperate girls, nor kept the distance the shier ones did, but matched the lines of her body with his in perfect symmetry, allowing him to lead without being led. Rather her balance seemed to center on his left hand at her waist and radiate outward to the extremeties. When he swung her around she was like a satellite spinning beautifully and gracefully in his gravity well, keeping them both in absolute harmony. The lesser gravity of the Moon made their heads and feet and spirits seem to float, just as it took longer for a lady's skirts to resettle in the midst of a lively dance.

She laughed at his more adventurous moves. The sound of her laughter was to him as refreshing as a clear trickling stream. Her hand never left his once. Even if only the tips of their fingers were clinging to each other as a spin threatened to pull them apart, the next moment gravity reasserted itself and her delicate hand was back in his palm, its partner on his shoulder once again.

It was an alien feeling to Zoisite, and so it was a while before he could quite come to terms with it and give it a name; but it was moments like those that his heart skipped a beat at the thought of simply being parted from this mysterious young woman—as though, if their grip did fail and they snapped apart he might fall off his axis.

In that way, he was somewhat relieved when the music slowed, and he found the breath to actually speak to her.

"Whew," she breathed, her eyebrows rising behind her mask as they trained their gazes over one another's shoulders. "I don't think I've danced like that in a long time. . . . In fact, I can't remember if I ever had, now that I think about it."

He let out a sharp exhale in amusement.

She tilted her head in his direction. "What?"

"You were perfection," he said in her ear, "and that is not a term I ever use lightly."

He could sense her timid smile and blush as he adjusted his hand on hers. She said, "It is only physics. Everything is physics, after all."

Zoisite started. It took an effort not to miss a step. He pulled away slightly to stare at her. "What did you just say?"

"I said everything is physics. Even art, when you really take the time to think about it—"

"_You_ have an interest in physics?"

"Well, yes," she said tentatively with a nod. "But not just that. I find all fields of science to be fascinating, really, though perhaps only music rivals physics as the most perfect marriage of applied mathematics and the laws of nature. . . ."

He let out a sound of disbelief, and could not wipe away the idiotic grin he felt stuck to his lips. She looked down, smile vanishing—and how he hated to see it go. "I'm sorry," she began. "I probably should have just said yes and been done with it. I tend to forget I'm not among my peers at these functions—"

"No, no, don't apologize. I would hate to not be considered among your peers." Zoisite smiled fondly down at her as he said, "I was merely surprised, is all. I could not believe my good fortune to not only be dancing with such a lovely young woman, but such an intelligent young woman as well."

Her smile returned, and she could not hide its brightness. "Then talk of mathematics and science does not bore you as it does other young men?"

"Quite the opposite. In fact, it is downright exhilarating when it is with the opposite sex for a change."

"You are indeed an extraordinary man, then. I would ask you who you are," the girl said suddenly, in a way that made it impossible for him to tell whether she were being sincere or sarcastic, "but I am afraid if you told me I would wake up from this dream."

"Then don't ask, princess, and let us keep dancing forever."

So it seemed they did, and all the while were perhaps the only couple discussing the botanical points of interest in the garden or the inner workings of a starship, or even of the various planets in general while continuing to keep in step with the music and the other couples drifting about them like so many comets in their distinct orbits. The more they talked, the more Zoisite discovered how much he and the girl held in common, to the point it seemed in a strange way as though he had known her all his life.

During those stretches when they were both silent, Zoisite gazed about them over her shoulder; and looking at the masked faces of strangers that consequently blended together, he could not help feeling as though they two were the only real people in the world. And he felt quite content.

No food or drink or physical pleasure could match that particular feeling. The only times he remembered such happiness were the first time he met the monk Boxy, or when Endymion informed him he would return to the South its emperor. It was the pure contentment of knowing he was where he was supposed to be. Catching a glimpse of Nephrite in the crowd, whose cheek rested against his partner's head despite the novelty of their acquaintance, he knew he was not the only one to feel this way. But far be it for him to denounce Fate this time, even if he said he did not believe in it.

When they both agreed their feet had danced enough, the two moved away from the other couples to find a little shaded terrace where they could talk in relative privacy. So much time had slipped away from them, but one would never know it to look at the sky, its perimeters only taking on a richer hue of red. It was their bodies they had to rely on to tell them it was late.

"Yet I am loath to put an end to our conversation," Zoisite said.

The girl smiled warmly. "Luckily for us, our topics of discussion have no end. They are even broader than the horizons of human knowledge."

Zoisite could only sigh because she had missed his point. "But if I retire now, I will have to leave your company, and what reassurances do I have that this whole evening has not been some fleeting coincidence, and that I will never see you again?"

"It is not," the other said with great conviction. "We were fated to meet, so why should it be only for one night?"

He let out a sigh. "Fate, you say?"

"Yes. That is what I truly believe."

"Even though that is a thing that cannot be quantified."

The girl turned her eyes momentarily, but Zoisite read her conviction on her features nonetheless, and it almost convinced him as well.

"Well, one thing remains certain," he said, changing the subject: "I shall not be able to sleep unless I see your true face, princess. I want to know who it is who will be haunting my dreams."

She blushed at his smile, unable to read it. "Are you sure that's fair?"

In one deft move, Zoisite reached up and pulled off his own mask. He had been wanting to in part all evening; he had never been one to sit for restrictions, whether physical or otherwise. Now he felt oddly uncertain—but he did not hesitate, nor did he balk from meeting the girl's eyes with his own naked gaze. "Now it is," he told her.

And she for her part did not show any surprise, as though she had known precisely what to expect, and was not embarrassed. She did not resist but if anything leaned slightly forward when Zoisite moved to undo her own mask. She closed her eyes as he gently pulled it away and set it on the stone beside them; and when she opened them again, he knew her delicate features and the unassuming intelligence and honesty in her countenance would thereafter remain in his memory, like the image of the sun that remains behind one's closed eyelids.

"Now," he said, "let us be strangers no longer."

"You are no stranger," she said frankly. "I know who you are. You're one of the officers of the Prince of Earth, aren't you?"

His smile was answer enough.

"I knew you could be no Moonman the moment you took me in your arms. But I'm afraid I do not know your name."

"Call me Zoisite. And you, princess?"

She was silent for a moment, giving him only a quizzical grin. But then she answered: "Mercury. The princess of the planet Mercury—"

"Mercury . . ." he could not help but echo.

"Yes."

With that name, it was as though the final key had been turned in some place deep down in his being. In a way, he had known her all his life. Suddenly he wanted to grab her hand in his, and at the same time found it almost sacrilegious to touch her.

"Mercury," he breathed instead, "most faithful of planets, never far from the Sun's side . . . Be faithful and meet me again—and not just in my dreams."

She laughed, but nodded emphatically. "I will."

—o—

She was waiting for him when next they met.

Their features plain for all those gathered to see, the four kings' entrances were introduced when they arrived again at the ball. This time they wore fine double-breasted suits that were formal variations on a military officer's uniform—studded and strung with gold-threaded cords, and epaulets were on their shoulders. The stone clasps that held their short capes and the colors of their piping had been chosen for the names they bore: light blue for Jadeite, rust red for Nephrite, Zoisite in deep green and Kunzite the fairest pink as to be almost white. Their hair was pulled neatly and uniformly back, and they wore spotless white gloves. The silver crescent medals given them by Queen Serenity completed Zoisite and Nephrite's attire, and they bore them with pride as they entered side by side like the brothers they had once thought of one another as.

Likewise Mercury and her companion Jupiter met them together, the latter in emerald-green silk, the former in crepe the light golden color of citrine and champagne, a gossamer shawl hanging off her shoulders. The bodices of the young women's gowns hugged their figures before fanning outward at the hips in flowing skirts for the ballroom and formal dinner—just voluminous enough to give the appropriately elegant effect on the dance floor, and in the less assertive gravity, without being cumbersome.

The two young women took their lords' elbows, and together the two couples made their way to the long vaulted hall where the feast was to be held. They dined at the highest table, at the head of which Queen Serenity herself sat. The various dishes were lavish, and no expense was spared on the food or the wine, which seemed endless, and the conversation lasted for hours. No one filled too soon, just as it seemed no one had come to supper starving despite the cavorting of the nights before that had left little time to tend to such bodily needs. As the purple dusk deepened and the stars increased in luminosity beyond the crystal ceiling, their ears were filled with the frivolity of their fellows—even Serenity joined in on the laughter, making it no less than infectious—so that when they eventually returned to the ballroom floor, lubricated by the wine, they fell into the sweeping rhythm smoothly and effortlessly.

They rushed into nothing. Content in their partners, they took their time with formalities forgotten before. Gentlemen bowed to their ladies before taking their waists, and there was no need for partners to carve out a space for themselves on the orderly dance floor. Encouraged by their partners, the Earthmen picked up quickly on the traditional line and circular courtly dances of the Moon Kingdom. Stepping lightly across the geometrical and pastoral mosaics that composed the floor, the particulars seemed to come back to them as if from previous training, or a previous life. If their steps and their silence seemed to carry with them a new solemnity, it must only have been the natural result of the comfort that had grown between the respective partners in the time that had passed since their first meeting, for the contented, dreamy smiles and bright grins of jollity that lit up their faces were anything but solemn and silent.

The hours blurred into days under the slowly turning stars of the night sky—behind the paper lanterns and the candles and torches that dotted the landscape and lit the way for the young gentlemen and their shimmering young princesses spinning across the floor drunk on the pleasures of youth, though who knew how effective they really were beneath the bright light of the waxing Earth. Only its slow growth marked the passage of time. Otherwise, those were the days it seemed as though time itself had stood still.

—o—

The air was split by Princess Mars' high-pitched squeal of surprise as Jadeite pinched her waist from behind. She jumped and spun around to face him, and the wine in the two goblets he held precariously between the fingers of one hand sloshed over the rims when she punched him playfully.

The princess's companions laughed at their display, as did Jadeite who managed a bawdy joke between breaths that almost earned him another slap. But his laughter was infectious, and Mars could not keep the smile from softening her features that she so willed to stay cool and obstinate. Perhaps in part to hide it she took one of the goblets and up-ended it, but not before chastising Jadeite for nearly spilling the wine on her gown.

Princess Jupiter clutched Nephrite's hand closer to her; his arm was draped about her shoulder in a display of affection neither was the least ashamed to show. With his other hand, though it was occupied with a cup of its own, he gestured in the air as he said a few words to Jadeite, who was not as skilled at hiding his inebriation. Though he could not have had any more to drink than the rest of them, and his mind would doubtless be clear as his wit was sharp as ever, he leaned toward his comrade in a drunken manner, nearly pulling his protesting Mars with him.

The formal orchestra that had played for them in the ballroom had long since gone to bed. Under the night sky a smaller smattering of musicians entertained them with flutes and strings that were supposed to recall the Earth they knew, though one had to wonder when Queen Serenity had last visited the Earth if she thought the music reminiscent of anything in the Middle Kingdom.

More likely it was the music of her youth, in a land far to the west and long vanquished by the passage of time, blunted and tamed by Christendom—a land and time recalled by the forests of pillars that surrounded those who strolled through the Moon Palace. More random and primal, vaguely but not unpleasantly cacophonous, were the melodies that drifted around them, inspiring bursts of free and mindless dance like those of the naiads and satyrs of Bacchus's mythical parties. There was even something called a harpsichord, an entirely lunar creation that appeared to be a harp placed on its side and plucked by the striking of keys rather than directly with the fingers. It created an alien sound like the playing of the shimmering stars themselves, as effective at making the mind swim as the stronger wine the Queen had saved until this late hour.

No one bothered to wonder where she herself had gone. By now the Earthmen were used to Serenity's frequent disappearances. Perhaps they should have credited that with the carefree spell the jubilee had fallen under. Never did the girls look more the astral princesses they were than in their light shifts, a few their feet bare, and their partners could be no farther from regional emperors in their loose trousers and tunics. On some whim, someone had placed crowns of laurels on Zoisite's and Nephrite's heads, though Jadeite had long since stolen the latter's, and Zoisite's had found a new owner with Mercury, on whom it sat charmingly crooked just as he had placed it, lest it become tangled in his long locks that were pulled back in a loop in the Greek style.

As Jadeite and Nephrite bantered back and forth, telling stories of their time on campaign in the North or in the Capital, trying to out-embarrass one another, Zoisite glanced over at his princess. She laughed politely when her comrades did, her wide blue eyes shining with a clarity that had long since gone from those of the others. Her slippers, tied together, dangled from the crook of her elbow on the arm that held her wine glass. She had not refilled it all evening, and there was still a finger's width left in the bottom. He found her temperance worthy of admiration, but was not sure why.

Then again, he could say the same for any of her traits.

Bending down, he whispered in her ear, "Would you come away with me for a moment, Princess?"

"Oh, sure," she said softly, "but your friends—"

"They'll never notice we're gone." Whether at his words or his proximity or his breath on her ear, she seemed to suppress a shiver. "Come on," he coaxed gently. "I want to show you something."

They left their drinks behind. And when they had slipped out of the others' earshot—unnoticed or at very least unmissed, just as Zoisite had said—Mercury remarked, "Your friends are quite amusing."

"Aren't they? You'd never know it, though, but Nephrite is easily the most serious of all of us, including Prince Endymion."

"Jadeite sure brings out the comic in him," she said fondly.

"Yes. Strange, isn't it? It used to be quite the opposite. They were like oil and water, those two—"

"I wonder what changed that."

"You know," Zoisite suddenly laughed, "I only wish I could tell you. It's a mystery to me as well. —Now, then, up here I think it is."

Mercury lifted her skirts and quickened her pace to keep up with him as he jogged up a short flight of stairs, looking back over his shoulder to see that she was following. "What is it you wanted to show me?" she said.

As she adjusted the laurels on her crown, he took her other hand to lead her the rest of the way, saying as though begging her pardon: "It will probably be nothing new to you, Princess, but I wanted my first viewing to be with you by my side. I was told this was one of the best observation areas on the palace grounds."

It might have been one of the oldest parts as well. Where some of the structure had collapsed an indeterminable time ago, the builders had merely incorporated the damage into the new design. When the two reached the landing and stepped out from beneath the archway of leaning silver columns bracing quartzite sheets of glass window, and the vista opened up before them, Mercury could not help her small sigh of wonder.

Below them the terraced hillside of palace domes and walks and gardens met the gently lapping waters of the Sea of Serenity, which stretched like a sheet of rippling silver to the horizon, unbroken but for a peninsula on their right, and the quiet hills of a distant island. In its still waters floated the nearly-full sphere of the Earth—reflected so faithfully by that mirror-like surface as to make it appear there really were two Earths, and if one were to dive into those waters he might find himself suddenly floating through space.

It was quite a sight to see, one Zoisite had once dreamed of, but he was watching Mercury instead.

"I have seen it before," she admitted to him, though her eyes were on the scenery, "but not like this, in such parabolic symmetry. And you say this is your first time?"

"My first time to see the Earth in its full, standing on another world," he said distantly as he walked up behind her. "I was told it was a once in a lifetime experience, that not much else can quite so effectively humble a man."

"Can you see your kingdom from here?"

He squinted up at the hanging sphere. "Not at the moment. Then again, it's difficult at such a distance to distinguish between continent and cloud."

He looked down at her smiling face and studied her profile in the earthlight, uttering: "I am glad to be able to witness this with you."

She turned then to look up and meet his eyes, and smiled. "That's what you say, but it would have looked the same with anyone. Technically."

"With anyone?"

Zoisite treasured her forward manner, innocent of the feelings of those around her and true to the crux; but this time it did bother him. And Mercury must have noticed. Instead of answering, she moved toward the broken statue of a mythical beast that at one time might have had the face of a braying steed. Leaning against its shoulder, fingering the broken stub of an ear, she merely continued to stare up at the glowing orb of the Earth.

Undaunted by her silence, Zoisite came up beside her. He tucked a lock of that curiously blue hair behind her ear, admiring its shape for a moment before she turned toward him. "I wish I could see it from your planet, as well," he said. "I bet it's nothing but a tiny blue star there."

Her lovely smile returned, and with it a faint blush. "You don't know what you're saying."

"Of course I do."

She laughed at him for that.

"You want to see my planet, even though there's nothing to see but rock and craters?"

"What difference does it make if it's Princess Mercury's planet. But, why? Does no one live there?"

"The surface temperatures are too extreme," she told him like he should have known by now. "My people live in great caverns underground, where they mine the iron that makes Serenity's great ships."

"Then why not go? Are you ashamed to show me your world—afraid I'll find it too dark? Because I won't." When she sighed in exasperation and turned her head, Zoisite said, "All right, Princess. If you will not show me your kingdom, then allow me to show you mine, humble though it may be. . . ."

Mercury shook her head and he trailed off. Her gentle smile was almost painful to bear. "We haven't known one another a week and already you're talking about whisking me away to your homeworld. Are you always so forward with every young woman who strikes you fancy?"

He sat back. "Now this makes sense. You know, when you and I first met, it almost seemed as though you were afraid to dance with me."

"It was only that you were a stranger to me that I felt reluctant. I don't often like to dance with men whose acquaintance I have not made on at least one occasion."

"And I was no different?"

"Well . . ." She averted her eyes. "Perhaps there was something more in your case."

"But what is there to be afraid of?" Zoisite took her chin tenderly in his hand and turned her face toward his, speaking into her eyes—her deep eyes that reflected the sea that reflected the Earth: "It seems to me that the worst that can happen is that one of those times you might just wake to find that the person you are with could, all too easily, change your life forever. And is that really so frightening?"

He had to laugh once he had thought about his own words. "No," he corrected himself. "Forgive me: I suppose that is actually quite terrifying."

As were the emotions simply being with her aroused. He had never been one to shy from them before, however—in fact had found them all too easy to bear—nor did he want to now, so what made him hesitate to admit what was in his heart? "I . . . have no context for you, Princess," he settled for as she continued to search his features speechless—or else afraid to speak. "You have captured me completely with your mind and your grace and . . . all that you are, and all I know with any certainty at this moment is that I want you by my side always. My faithful Mercury . . . It is insane and impulsive of me to ask such a thing, isn't it?"

"Yes," Mercury said without any hesitation. She seemed surprised by her own exclamation, and added more tentatively, "But if you are mad for asking it, then, I guess, so am I for wanting it."

Stricken by the brilliance of her smile then, he cupped her soft cheek in the palm of his hand and leaned toward her to lay a kiss on her lips; and he was glad when she allowed him to. When he inevitably was forced to pull away, she took the hand that caressed her face in her hand, and laughed softly as he fondly straightened her crown of laurels.

—o—

"Come on then, come see for yourself," Artemis said in a hushed tone of voice, and beckoned to Bunbo to follow him with one hand. "This way."

There was something thrilling in stealing through these darker corners of the Moon Palace in the deep of night, and at the same time something unsettling, as if Bunbo were walking into some patiently waiting, unseen danger. But he followed obediently, and eagerly, unable to quell the curiosity that overrode his better senses, which told him there were some things—perhaps those that lay ahead—that were best left unknown.

Artemis stopped in a doorway, partly concealed from what lay beyond by a curtain that billowed lazily in a slight breeze. When Bunbo approached, he too was wary of being seen, though he was not sure why.

Beyond the simple post and lintel doorway was a round courtyard like the amphitheaters of the ancient Greeks though much more intimate in space and primitive in its construction, stripped of any decoration that might trigger a sense of familiarity in the misplaced Earthman's mind—in all but it's most primordial recesses. Perhaps it was never meant to be seen by Earthmen at all.

Moonmen were gathered on the circular floor, their shapes and identities nebulous in the half-light and under the flickering tongues of the flames rising from tripods about the perimeter. It seemed as though they were obscured as well by what they wore, but whether cloaks or masks, veils or headdresses—or perhaps all these things in their turn—Bunbo could not adequately tell.

Some were clapping or shaking sistrums in time with a quick melody played by unseen flutes, but most had their eyes turned to the center of the circle. In it was a podium, and on that a woman was dancing, spinning mindlessly to the music. Bunbo recognized her from earlier by her bright red hair as Hathor, the sister of the Queen's alien adviser. In all but body, however, she was completely changed from that earlier sighting. She wore a cow's horns on her head, and on her body a form-fitting crimson dress that exposed her breasts; and her golden bangles chimed and the beaded strands and silken strips that comprised her skirt spun through the air and slapped against her long, bare limbs with each turn in perfect radii—but there was nothing licentious about her dance, as charged with raw energy as it was. Rather it seemed to Bunbo that there was not much difference between her spinning and the fervor of mystics on local feast days back home, or the bare-breasted Balinese women in their religious pageants. Every now and then he caught a splash of red paint on her face or arms, and her dark eyes appeared distant, as though focusing on something on a different plane.

"What are they doing?" Bunbo asked his companion in a hushed tone.

"It's a ritual to mark the advent of the new moon," Artemis told him.

"But I thought the Moon Kingdom rejected such things that appealed to superstition and barbarism."

"They do, but you must understand that those who engage in these secret rites do not see them as barbaric. There are no senseless blood sacrifices, no priestly class to get fat off the blind tribute of the uneducated. The people you see here, they believe by performing these age-old ceremonies they might on some level restore the balance of the cosmos by appeasing the various forces of energy that bind them together."

"Like the energy said to be contained within the Silver Imperium Crystal?"

"Yes, something like that. At least, that is the gist; but in these times more than ever, it provides these people with a sense of comfort. Even if the only order they restore is the order within their own hearts. Tradition has that power. That is why the Queen performs these rites, though to Her Majesty they are like drops in a bucket."

He did not need to mention the supernova aloud; that much Bunbo understood. He was not sure where he stood on the issue himself, but he was aware of what old men said of it on Earth. Strange that things would not be so different in the enlightened Moon Kingdom. But one thing Bunbo did not understand: "Why aren't you with them?"

Artemis flashed him a smile. "Believe it or not, these sorts of meetings do not appeal to all of us spacemen. And besides, I have attended plenty already, in my youth— But look, Bunbo: here comes the Queen."

Hathor had already finished her dance and was waiting to relinquish the dais, on one knee with arms outstretched as though to catch the full Earth. As the two watched from afar, Queen Serenity entered the circle from one side and walked toward its center with Thoth by her side. Those already gathered fell silent as Serenity passed, all watching her radiant figure as she passed and ascended the dais, seating herself on a Theban chair someone supplied, like the silver disc of the moon itself coming to rest between the crests of two hills. The sign of the crescent moon glimmered on her brow, but she said nothing, content to let her trusted servant be her voice.

"In the beginning was the Word," Thoth addressed the crowd; "and the Word was with the Divine, and the Word was divine. Everything came into being through me, and apart from me not one thing came into being. I was sent forth from the Power and have come to you who study me, and am found by you who seek me.

"Look at me!" his voice boomed like the crash of a wave over the roar of the fires, "you who study me; and you who hear, hear me! You awaiting me, take me into yourselves. Do not banish me from your vision. . . ."

As he continued to speak, Artemis explained, "It is an old hymn, revealed, some say, to the Queen's ancestors at the beginning of time and handed down to humanity. He is only assuming Her Majesty's voice out of traditional deference." He paused, and when he spoke again it was not without some suddenness. "Do you believe in magic, Bunbo?"

Bunbo had to think for a moment. "I didn't once," he said. "But since the last five years spent with Zoisite, and in conversation with Nephrite, I find it increasingly difficult to continue to doubt its existence. Perhaps it is only that true magic is a much more mundane thing than most people care to think."

"That is certainly one way to put it." Artemis nodded. "Someone here might say that what we consider magic and what we consider science are really twin brother and sister—two sides of the same coin, if you will, and not polar opposites like so many would have you believe. They are both methods of making sense of the world around us." He sighed. "And in both cases, it seems, there are those who are content to use it to improve upon that world, and those who seek it as a tool for domination."

Bunbo fought off a chill that grabbed hold of him, for at that very moment he had been staring at the silver Moon Queen, whose ethereal form suddenly took on an imposing quality as she sat before the tiny form of the comparatively insignificant full Earth.

Artemis must have noticed his unease. "Perhaps I've said too much," he said contritely so that the boy could not very well argue with him. "Let's go, shall we? There really isn't much to see after this."

III.Gravitation

It was deep into the darkest hours of the lunar night when Beryl woke, and the bright Earth was at full for all she could tell outside the palace windows, showing continents she did not recognize. Even in this darkness there was no cool breeze to hit her naked skin and cause her to shiver. Yet she did as she rose silently from the rumpled bedsheets where Governor Prism slept soundly on. For as old as he was rumored to be, he sure behaved like the man of no more than forty distinguished years he looked after all those decades in Serenity's kingdom. Perhaps it was true what they said, that there was something in the air or the water or the lesser gravity that naturally extended people's lives.

Finding her slip among the clothes on the floor, she shrugged it on and stepped toward the wash basin sitting on the vanity. What she planned to do there she did not know, for she stopped when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. She studied the violet eyes that peered back at her from beneath a wild mane of curly dark brown hair, framed in an adult woman's face with the subtlest dusting of a tomboy's freckles that were now bleached by the starlight. Her body beneath the thin slip was voluptuous like the statues of goddesses that curved up the pillars of a Hindu temple, with wider hips and larger breasts than those perpetually teenage girls who so caught the attentions of Endymion and his generals. Was this what had attracted so many looks from the men who had attended the ball, both young and old, but never the look of that person in particular? Was that what had prompted Prism to ask her back to his quarters after they danced last night?

No. It was something else. . . . She remembered the talks they had had over glasses of that heady lunar wine about politics and art. How he muttered about being smitten with her as he leaned in, obviously intoxicated, to kiss her shoulder. She had laughed then. His gesture had seemed charming and harmless at the time. Prism had never taken a wife.

Her fingers went to the necklace that lay heavy against her collarbones. She still recalled her surprise and joy when Prism had laid it reverently on her skin a few days ago; she had been standing in just the same spot. Emerald and yellow beryl baguettes of gradating sizes and incredible luster curved around her throat in such a way as to suggest they were worshiping its symmetry. She hadn't taken the necklace off, even when she had so eagerly removed the dress she agreed it complimented so well. She could not but admit she was grateful to the governor for the gift, but suddenly it felt so much like a collar.

My Prince, she thought as she stood there staring with pity and resentment at the image of herself—have I betrayed you for _this_? Have I abandoned the love I held so dearly for you for mere trinkets, for a poor woman's superficial sense of security?

—No. No, I could never do that, she told herself. But what right have I now to claim your love when I was not strong enough to avoid all temptations? What right have I now to compete with Serenity?

Silently and solemnly, a lonesome tear rolled down one cheek; and she watched it and let it fall, because she no longer deserved to wipe it away.

—o—

The metallic clanging of dueling sabres and the scuffing sound of hurried footsteps echoed throughout the room. Under the queer sunlight of another lunar day pairs of masked young men moved back and forth across the floor honing their skills with the sword.

At least, so was the intent. Nephrite did not seem to be fully into it this morning. Where usually he was the quickest swordsman among them, today his responses lacked inspiration, his parries mechanical and lunges only half-hearted. It had allowed Zoisite to land several crucial touches already; but he was not one to complain about the tables being turned. He spun to avoid taking the point of Nephrite's sword in his side, batting it away with his own blade in an overhanded parry before lunging low and up, landing a touch to his comrade's ribs.

"I believe that makes five," Zoisite said, to which Nephrite shook his head.

He removed his mask. "I guess you've bested me, then."

"Want to go to ten?"

Nephrite exhaled sharply, lowering his sword with one hand and unbuttoning the collar of his padded shirt in an obvious sign he would rather take the defeat and call it a day.

At that Zoisite straightened and pulled off his own mask, narrowing his eyes at the other. "You cannot be tired already. Don't get me wrong, Nephrite, I relish the victory, but I cannot help but think how much sweeter it would be if you had really tried."

"You don't think I was trying?" Nephrite chuckled.

"Not very hard. It isn't like you—you who always seemed to be so concerned with protecting your pride."

The other flashed him a crooked smile. "Maybe I'm a little sore from an earlier workout."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Wrestling. With Jupiter."

Zoisite nearly dropped his sword and mask. "You mean the _Princess_ Jupiter?"

"Who else?"

Zoisite could not help himself. He laughed out loud, so hard he held his side and had to brace himself against the wall. It earned more than one curious glance their way, which seemed to make Nephrite uncomfortable. He told Zoisite, "Keep it down, will you. I don't see what about it is so amusing."

"It's only . . . Well, think of how it sounds for a moment. And I'm the one accused of impropriety," Zoisite muttered giddily as he leaned in closer to Nephrite. "Wrestling, huh? Is that some cute Moon Kingdom lingo for the reason you've hardly shown your face since the new moon?"

Nephrite scowled. "I shouldn't dignify that with a response."

"In other words, guilty as charged."

"No." Finding some new reserve of energy—perhaps in defense of the princess's honor—Nephrite backed away and in the same movement dealt Zoisite a high cut with the sabre. He parried instinctively, counterattacking uncertainly as Nephrite told him in a low voice, "That was really what happened. And in the midst of our playful struggle, I might have gotten myself thrown and pulled a muscle in my shoulder."

If such were the case, though, he hardly showed it as Zoisite bore down on him, easily stopping the blade that hovered a mere couple of inches from his unprotected forehead. His hard stare and cocky smile seemed to be inviting his old friend to test him.

With a chuckle, Zoisite relented and dropped his sword, saying, "The girl's got quite an arm."

"Among other things. What about yours?"

"Mine," he said dreamily, "has brains. And I love her dearly for them."

Nephrite chuckled as he slid his blade into its sheath. "I'm not the only one who has not been himself recently, then. The Zoisite I once knew would not have bothered to question what lies beneath a pretty face."

"The Zoisite to whom you are referring had a lot of growing up to do. I guess you might say he had yet to meet his destiny."

Nephrite raised his eyebrows. "His destiny?"

But Zoisite only gave him an impenetrable smile as he brushed by.

—o—

"So," Venus abruptly changed the subject, her tone of voice turning coy, "we haven't seen a whole lot of you the last week or so, Jupiter. Care to explain yourself?"

The tall young princess stopped the game of ball she was playing with her companions on the palace steps to look bashfully down at her feet. Her reply was anything but bashful, however. "Explain what? I don't have anything to hide."

"You've been spending long hours with Nephrite, in other words—" Mars cut herself off with a slight grunt as she caught the golden ball the other had thrown her with perhaps more strength than was necessary, and it could not well be said that Jupiter was a young woman who did not know her own strength.

"Like you girls are ones to talk," was her retort.

The other two feigned offense. Mercury, absorbed in a text that was balanced on her bent knees, could only sigh and shake her head to herself, though their banter did make her smile.

"So? What have you two been doing all this time?" said Venus, always the gossip.

"Oh, well . . . you know . . ." came the ambiguous reply; and at the amazed laughter that followed Jupiter blushed, though whether it was like what her friends thought or not she would not say. She balanced a ball on the back of her hand and rolled it up and down her arm, shrugging as she told them in an absent manner, "Oh, come on, you know a lady doesn't kiss and tell. Though, I will tell you, it is difficult not to adore a gentleman like him—handsome, pious, accomplished—and I _do_ adore him. He sure knows all the right things to say to a girl to sweep her off her feet—not to mention how to use that body—"

The others shot her looks of amazement.

"I mean on the dance floor, of course! Get your minds out of the gutter, you two."

"I don't know," Venus said as though to herself. "Can you trust a man who's that forward with a woman he's just met?"

"Oh, Venus, give it a rest." Mars put her hands on her hips. "Do you and Kunzite have a monopoly on happiness? I for one am glad Jupiter has found someone like we have." She tossed the ball back to the young woman in question, who suddenly looked indignant.

"And who said I wasn't? I am happy for Jupiter. It's Mercury I worry about."

At the mention of her name, Mercury looked up from her book. She furrowed her brows, not sure what Venus meant by such a thing.

"Yes, you know what I mean," Venus said at the look. "You've always got your nose buried in some huge tome or another, sometimes I wonder if you're more interested in your numbers and theories than boys."

"You would be correct there," Mercury told her with a smile. "Boys I have found, more often than not, are not worth the time and effort it takes to read them, and even once you have, it's not guaranteed you'll come away having learned anything particularly remarkable."

"Is that right? What about that Zoisite fellow you were going around with at the ball? It sure looked as though you thought _he_ was worth the effort, from where I was standing," Jupiter said with a coy grin and a wink as she tossed her ball to Mercury, who, caught unawares, caught it only out of instinct.

She lowered her book and sighed, turning the golden ball in her fingers, listening to the clear metallic hum the ball embedded in it made as it turned.

"I also couldn't help noticing how close you two were at supper," Venus said; and the tone of her voice seemed to imply she did not take that as a sign of her comrade's good judgment. "By that look on your face I would have said you thought you were in love."

It took Mercury by surprise. "Perhaps I am. And what would be wrong with that? Not only has he won one of the Queen's highest honors, there is substance behind the medal. He happens to be a very worldly and charming man, you know."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," said the other.

Which piqued Mercury curiosity. "I meant he is an avid scholar—a young gentleman who actually uses the head on his shoulders. I don't see why a person like him is worthy of your derision, Venus."

"Then you don't know half of what I've heard, my dear Mercury. If you had, maybe you would not think so highly of your Zoisite, and perhaps you would see that he is completely the wrong kind of suitor for you."

The other two girls had ceased their game and turned to Venus with concerned expressions on their faces. "What are you talking about?" Mars asked her, putting a hand on her hip.

And Venus shrugged as though it should have been common knowledge. "Haven't you heard the rumors about him from Earth? They say that Lord Zoisite has moved himself up the ladder by unconventional means, preferring to take his diplomacy into the bedroom, if you catch my meaning. They say he must have one of the longest lists of conquests of any lord in the entire Middle Kingdom."

"You're wrong," Mercury told her, her chest heaving with offense for the accused. "How can you say such things, Venus? If you only knew him—"

"Oh, I know him all I want to know. And I am telling you, Mercury, only because I don't want to see my dear friend hurt, but you know how things are in the southern kingdoms of the Earth. He can't have been completely honest with you. A leader of his stature? He probably has a hundred wives already he is not telling you about."

"Really, Venus!" Mars said, raising her voice and effectively silencing the blond girl. "You should be ashamed of yourself. Why must you always pick on poor Mercury with your second-hand nonsense?"

But Mercury thought even Mars did not understand. That she felt she had a duty to come to Mercury's defense, that they thought her such a fragile creature who could not withstand a little criticism, that was just as painful as any of Venus's preaching.

"I am not picking on her," Venus was trying, putting a hand over her heart as though to better convey her earnestness. "I am merely trying to warn her—"

"With these charges that are completely unfounded, and you know that—"

"Are we interrupting something, ladies?"

The princesses stopped their bickering at the intrusion of a masculine voice, and Mercury looked up to see who had come to her rescue.

It was Jadeite, followed closely by Zoisite and Nephrite, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other hugging a silver bowl of golden green fruit to his body. "Speak of the devil," Mars called out to him with a lopsided smile, and that put to end any inquiry into their line of discussion before it could start. "What are you doing here, Jadeite?"

"My companions and I were struck with a sudden undeniable urge to see all of you," he said in that sweetly insincere manner of his that in Mercury's opinion made the two so perfect for one another. He held up the bowl, balancing it on the tips of his fingers. "Can we entice you ladies in some fresh pears? We filched them from Serenity's orchards hoping you might like to share them with us, help us hide the evidence of our trespasses. That is, of course, if you will allow us young bucks to barge in on your party."

Jupiter, who had been rolling the golden ball around her fingers in a posture of thinking it over, said when her companions found themselves without a response, "I'll bite." And she flicked the ball into the air behind her back in Nephrite's direction. The smile she flashed him when he caught it lightly and cradled it in both hands, like he were catching something fragile, spoke volumes, though Venus and Mars did not appear to have witnessed it.

"Isn't Kunzite with you?" the former said, trying to sound indifferent, making Jadeite laugh haughtily.

"Not this time, Princess. He has business with the Prince this noontime. So I guess you'll just have to bear our boorish company without him in the meantime—"

Though she did not herself fully know why, their frivolity suddenly embarrassed Mercury. Perhaps it was the ease with which they shifted from Venus's teasing to Jadeite's, as though the former had never even happened. There was an insincerity to it that made her almost as uncomfortable as being in the spotlight. So she closed her book silently and got up from her seat on the side of the stairs and hurried down the rest, stepping hurriedly away from the group across the courtyard.

As she passed, and as she ignored the unclear whispers of her companions that followed her parting, her eyes met Zoisite's, which questioned her silently as she went, the smile beneath them faltering. That smile inexplicably made her want to cry as she remembered what infidelity Venus had accused him of, and she turned her eyes. She did not see him pluck two pears from Jadeite's bowl with an apologetic word to his comrades and hurry after her.

She sat herself down on the far side of the rim that surrounded the basin of a fountain in the middle of the large courtyard. Somehow the sound of its rushing and spraying water that hid her from the view of her companions banished the irrational tears of shame that had threatened to spill over. Her book sitting on her lap, she rolled the golden ball she had taken with her in circles around the stone beside her with one finger, so concentrating on its flashing reflections of the water as to not notice exactly when Zoisite arrived beside her.

"May I sit down, Princess?" he asked in that gentle voice with which he had asked her to see his planet.

She turned up to him with a smile. How could she deny him that much? "It's a free world."

He sat down beside her, producing the two pears he had brought with him, saying as he handed one to her, "I hope Jadeite did not make you feel out of place. He has a tendency sometimes to be more forward than some are used to—"

"No, it wasn't that at all—" Mercury cut herself off as she took the pear he offered her in hand. She looked up at him in wondrous surprise. "It's ice cold!" she exclaimed. "Did you . . ."

Zoisite smiled. "Just a little trick of mine I have been working to perfect," he said. "Here . . ." Tentatively, as though for a wild animal, he raised his hand to her face, resting the back of it against her cheek. She felt no difference, until he cupped her other cheek with his palm, and though his touch was soft it struck her skin like a piercing wind, it was so unnaturally cold. All the while he told her nonchalantly, "Personally I find certain fruits are better enjoyed chilled."

"You did that with your own hand? Then you truly are one of the lokapala." Setting the pear momentarily aside on top of her book, she took that hand in both of hers. She felt safe enough with him to admit, "I have some skills like that myself."

"Really. Like what—would you show me?"

But not that safe. "Some other time, perhaps."

She was quiet for a moment, debating whether to bring it up, but what Venus had said earlier kept returning to her thoughts, and she could not sit for not knowing the truth, one way or the other. She had never been that type. "Zoisite," she started slowly under his encouraging gaze, "there is something I would like to ask you."

"Ask away, Mercury. I have nothing to hide from you."

"It's just that, though I feel as though we have learned so much about one another over the past couple of weeks, I realize now that it is only because we have spoken of other subjects so intimately, but not of ourselves. In the midst of all this gaiety, I never even bothered to ask you, let alone think that you might already have a wife on Earth."

His smile when she said that was patient and kind, but it was the kind of answer he gave her that reminded her of how she had been able to doubt his sincerity in the first place. "What brings this about? Would I be acting as I do, saying the things I have said to you if I did have a wife?"

"Some people might. Besides, it is common knowledge here that for kings and princes and sometimes even common men on Earth, especially in the southern lands, it is nothing out of the ordinary to marry young and often. Aren't there even kings who have had over one hundred wives and concubines?"

"Well, it isn't unheard of," Zoisite said, forcing a chuckle. "But I am not one of them." He put his other hand over her fingers, which held his captive even through her questioning, as though to find strength from him. Unlike before, his hand was warm, and so soft over hers, so honest. He smiled at some distant thought in his mind. "Believe me, I too have felt the pressure to marry—it looks strange for one of my stature not to; you are certainly right on that account—and you would not imagine how many eligible daughters come out of the woodwork when you invite some dignitary or another to your court, or the princess of this or that kingdom looking to forge blood ties with the regional emperor. . . ."

He was wrong though: Mercury knew she certainly could imagine it. She lowered her eyes and laughed at the memories his words conjured. She might have been more oblivious than most when it came to suitors, but she had seen her friends go through those awkward episodes enough times all too clearly, and had the stories reiterated to her by them of her own suitors leaving a function flustered because she had refused to play the courting game, whether out of blissful ignorance of their intentions or only a practiced semblance of it.

"I tell you, there are times it feels as though every noble family wants a grandchild or a nephew of my blood, some tie to my empire or to the Middle Kingdom Capital," Zoisite continued; "or else they tell me I had better start thinking about producing an heir. But if what they say of the Silver Millennium is true, I have plenty of time to think about that, don't I?"

"It would certainly seem there is no need to hurry," Mercury agreed. But he still had not told her what she wanted to know.

As if reading her mind, he took a deep breath and let it out, looking deep into her eyes. "I swear to you, Mercury, I have taken no wife, on Earth or anywhere else. Nor shall I ever—I will continue to resist each time the subject is brought up until the chance comes when I can make you my queen."

She had not been watching his face when he said those last words, so when their meaning did sink in Mercury started and turned to face him. "Zoisite . . ." She fumbled for the right words. "Serenity would never allow it," was all she could think of to say in return.

"And does Serenity have absolute reign over your heart? You are the princess of the planet Mercury—"

"But it's much too soon. We've only just met."

"I know. Which is why I will not ask you now. But someday, Princess . . ." He furrowed his brows, and his green eyes reflected the water of the fountain. "Mercury, please believe me when I say I have never loved any woman as much as I love you now."

"Of course, but—"

"It will not fade, if that is what you're thinking. Each time I see you, each time I learn something new, my feelings grow only stronger, Mercury. Give me time and I know you will feel the way I do without the slightest glimmer of a doubt."

"Even if it is something that cannot be quantified?" Mercury riposted with a grin.

That seemed to be satisfactory for Zoisite. "Now then," he said as he released her and leaned back, hoisting his own pear in hand, "who's been spreading these lies about me having a hundred wives?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. The ones who said such things were only doing so out of concern for me, is all, trying to protect me from unworthy suitors. They know the only man I could ever love would have to be the most brilliant mathematician in the universe."

Zoisite raised a brow. "The universe is a vast place."

"Well, in the solar system anyway."

"Then you're in luck," Zoisite said, "because I'm just that man." At her playful expression of doubt, he revised: "Well, I do have five hundred years to prove it to you. And you cannot easily dismiss the new spaceship engines for which I received the Queen's praise."

"I was under the impression it was Nephrite's project."

"He can take credit for everything but the calculations—and some would say those are the most crucial part, without which the whole lot falls to pieces. In any case, I doubt very much you can find a faster mode of travel between the planets."

"Actually, there is one faster method," Mercury said as he was taking a bite of his pear—before she had a moment to consider whether it would even be imprudent to do so. Zoisite watched her with interest out of the corner of his eye as she added, "But it has not been in use for who knows how many centuries. . . ."

"Do tell me."

"Well, according to old texts, people in ancient times would travel between the planetary kingdoms by the means of gates that compressed space and time so as to make bridging the distance seem almost instantaneous—as easy as stepping from one room into the next," Mercury said. She shook her head. "But it would have required incredible amounts of energy from the likes of the Silver Imperium Crystal to sustain such a mode of transportation—if it were even possible to begin with. There is some debate over that, with many saying that it is more a pleasant myth than reality."

Mercury was not sure whether to believe it or not herself, as the path her studies had taken of late, not to mention the discoveries she had made about herself in the last decade, seemed to indicate that almost anything one could imagine was possible; but it is also true that one becomes accustomed to the restrictions of the times in which he lives all too easily.

But whichever the case may have been, Zoisite's eyes that searched hers only lit up at the mention, as though she had personally challenged him. "If that is to be my competition for the next millennium," he said, "then I suppose I had better get busy."

—o—

"Hold on one second, young man! Just where do you think you're going?"

Mercury looked up from the text spread out on the table that she had been studying. She smiled to herself. The residing librarian, Rikokeider, was raising a fuss about something again, no doubt quite aware how her voice and irritated footsteps carried in the still air of the building. And she would be the first to chastise anyone who came in here to study should they make half as much noise.

The voice that followed made her heart skip a beat as she recognized it as Zoisite's; and they seemed to be headed in her direction. "I think I can find my way around now," he was saying, "but thank you for your help—"

"Did I stutter, sir, when I told you your request for access to those texts was denied?"

"Perhaps you don't remember me from before, ma'am. I'm not sure I introduced myself then, but maybe if I did you would find some reason to trust me—"

"I don't care who you are. That book is very old and cannot be replaced. It is one of the few surviving original texts from the great library of Alexandria— Do you understand what that means—"

"Then I will be extremely careful with it."

They rounded the corner of a long bank of bookshelves to where Mercury was sitting with her studies among the scientific references. She stood quickly to meet them; and when Zoisite noticed her there, the words he was about to say in his defense died on his lips and he stared at her. She flashed him a smile in return.

Close on his heels was a dark-haired adolescent boy no taller than herself, who had remained silent through the whole debate; and not far behind him, Rikokeider appeared, a flustered expression set incongruously on her normally cool countenance.

Her eyes went wide when she saw Mercury. "Oh, forgive me, Princess," she said.

"Mercury," said Zoisite, not without a note of appreciation, "imagine running into you here. This is a pleasant surprise."

"It looks as though we were both struck by the same idea," she said. "Great minds think alike."

"You know this young man?" Rikokeider asked her, crossing her arms.

Mercury stood up straight. "Yes, he's a good friend of mine. And I can tell you right now, ma'am, that I would trust him with any of my books before I would any other man I know—except perhaps any _other_ of Prince Endymion's closest companions."

With a sigh, the librarian caved. She put the monocle that dangled from the pocket of her coat to her eye and stepped over to the towering bookcase, quickly scanning the titles of some large bound volumes that were arranged at chest level. Finding what she was looking for, she took one out with the practiced dexterity of one who had done so only a million times before, and held it out for Zoisite to take. "Your text, my lord," she said coolly.

He glanced at the title and furrowed his brows. "This is not the volume I asked for."

"Well, it will have to make do. If you had allowed me to explain, I would have told you the particular text you requested had already been lent out."

"May I ask to whom?"

At last the woman cracked a smile. "To your associate, Master Nephrite. At least one of you knows how to ask a lady nicely. Now, I leave you two under the Princess's watchful eye." She nodded to Mercury, saying, "Good day, gentlemen," and left.

Not trusting that Rikokeider could ever be out of earshot, Zoisite raised his brows and mouthed a melodramatic "whew" of relief, and Mercury had to stifle a chuckle. Then again, perhaps it should have been meant as an expression of appreciation, Mercury thought only as she noticed his gaze flicker over her person. She had chosen a pair of loose trousers to wear when she went out, a loose blouse tucked into their waistband, and it only now crossed her mind that though it was common attire for women in the Middle Kingdom, Zoisite had never seen her in anything so revealing.

The boy who accompanied him she had never seen at all, and the same seemed to be true vice versa. When she turned her eyes to him, he quickly turned his away, glancing at the books on the shelf and making a show of scrutinizing the gilded titles on their spines.

Meanwhile Zoisite walked over to her table, opening the tome he balanced in one hand for her to see as he asked, "Do you think this will actually help me?"

Mercury put her hands on her hips. "What were you looking for?"

"A Gnostic epistle I was told detailed some alchemical formulas."

"Is this about what I mentioned the other day of space travel?"

Zoisite's eyes were downcast as he smiled, and she needed no further confirmation.

"I said you may as well forget it," she said with a small sigh. "But if you're so determined, then you'll probably find something of use in there. You'll be interested to know alchemy's gone the way of cavemen, though, in many of the higher institutions of thought among the planetary kingdoms."

When she said that, the dark-haired boy turned to her.

"A school called quantum physics is all the rage now," Mercury said as she watched him. "It's mostly theoretical, but the leading scholars in their field have some interesting ideas on the mechanisms that control space and time and matter that I think you might find something of interest in."

"I've heard of that," said the boy suddenly.

She was startled to hear his voice—as, apparently, was Zoisite.

"In Master Oblong's teaching?" he asked, turning to the boy.

The other shook his head. "No, last time we were in India. There is a school there trying to uncover real-life applications for what is supposed to have happened in the Vedas—to unravel the hidden truth about the working of the cosmos they believe locked in the metaphysical."

The intimacy with which the boy spoke to Zoisite surprised Mercury, and she wondered who he could be and why she had not met him before if the two young men were as close as they sounded. "Fascinating," she said to him. "That's the first I've heard of such a movement on Earth."

"We are not all simpletons," the boy told her with unexpected bluntness, "who think the Earth is the center of the universe that everything revolves around, Princess. And some of us aren't buying that it's the Moon either."

Mercury did not know what to say.

Catching her discomfort, Zoisite quickly stepped in: "Forgive me, I forgot you two have not yet been introduced. Mercury, this is Bunbo, my apprentice."

"I was not aware regional emperors took apprentices," she said, extending her hand to the boy called Bunbo, though her eyes remained on Zoisite. "I had thought you were chosen at birth for your roles, like us, not appointed by the state."

"I'm more of a ward and student, Princess, a disciple at best," Bunbo said, but though his grip and gaze and words were humble, his tone of voice was not.

Zoisite chuckled. "Modesty. More like a lieutenant in training. I intend for him have all the skills of a statesman, in case I shall ever need someone to be my voice and hand should I be called away from my kingdom."

As he said so, he turned to look down at Bunbo, and stroked his dark hair fondly. If Bunbo either appreciated or resented the gesture, however, he showed absolutely no trace of it.

Mercury said quickly to dispel the awkward feeling that had fallen over the three of them: "Shall I take you two to find those texts I was referring to?"

"Don't bother," Bunbo said. "I can retrieve them myself."

"You know your way about the library?" Zoisite asked him. "Once again, you've beat me to something."

"No," said the other flatly, "but I can figure it out. In the meantime, I suppose you two would like some time alone." He put his hands to his sides and made the slightest bow, the first real show of deference he had exhibited the whole time, and said, "It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Princess."

Zoisite pulled out a chair inviting her to sit, and they fell easily enough into conversation. When Zoisite was taking his own seat, however, Mercury glanced over his shoulder and happened to catch Bunbo still staring at them. When their eyes met he turned away quickly, and disappeared behind the bookcase.

—o—

Night fell once again, and frivolity erupted with the sunset without any effort. Dignitaries who had arrived from the outer planets the week before to fulfill their solemn duties to the Moon Kingdom in the lunar afternoon came now to make and strengthen acquaintances, and to catch up on the goings-on of those the vastness of space had not let them speak or hear of for months on end. Those who attended were peppered with questions such as, how is your wife—or mother or daughter or son; how go things at home, in the nations of such-and-such; what new projects lie on the horizon?

It was the burden of the Prince's companions to answer such questions dutifully with a smile and a practiced air of genuine interest. And Zoisite for his part fulfilled that duty, but he was only too eager to return to his comrades' sides, where he could talk freely of the torture this or that governor or noblewoman had put him through with their stories, and take comfort in their mutual sarcasm and stifled laughter.

He was only more eager to be rejoined with Mercury.

At one point in the evening, he found himself, along with Bunbo, on one side of a debate about this new field of quantum physics Mercury had introduced him to with some Saturnian scholars. Looking for assistance, he spied Mercury engaged in conversation with another small group and called her over. "Help me out here, Princess," he said, laughing. "These learned gentlemen are trying to convince me the universe is flat!"

"Well, that is the accepted theory at the moment—though I wouldn't say flat. More like discus-shaped," Mercury told him when she had come over, blushing slightly from his putting her on the spot. The Saturnians roared with laughter when she put Zoisite in his place, and he joined them good-naturedly, saying once she was sitting beside him: "But if that's so, what happens when you step over the edge?"

"Supposing you ever could reach that far?" Mercury thought for a moment. She said with perfect seriousness, though no one else could take what she said the same way: "Why, I suppose you might come back in the opposite side."

Not long after that, Kunzite approached them, begging their guests' pardon. "The Queen wants to photograph us with the princesses to commemorate the occasion," he said lowly in response to Zoisite's question, leaning close to him.

"A group photograph?" Zoisite asked him. The Saturnian gentlemen were already rising to take their leave.

"She'll take one of the two of you first," Kunzite said, indicating Mercury with a nod, "while you are already here." As he was saying so, a woman in sari with a long black braid and carrying a tripod was approaching, looking to Kunzite for some hint as to what to do next. "This is Veena," he acknowledged her, "Serenity's own portraitist and one of the most esteemed artists in the system with either brush or camera obscura. They say her portraits are so true it is as though she captures in them a piece of her subjects' souls. We are fortunate to have caught her while she is in the Palace."

"With your permission, my lord and lady," she said after she had shook Zoisite's and Mercury's hands, "I would like to begin setting up the shot."

"By all means. —Should we move elsewhere, somewhere with a better backdrop?" Zoisite asked her.

She shook her head with a hum. "No. I think this will do just perfectly."

The benches where they had happened to settle down for their debate sat before one of the ubiquitous palace balconies, beyond which a colonnaded section of the forum could be seen bracing one side of the night sky, still carrying the last purple traces of the slow-fading dusk; and directly behind them a fragrant wisteria vine in bloom climbed up the half arch above them, completing the composition with its hanging, pale violet bunches of blossoms.

"I'll be going, then," Bunbo said quietly, but Zoisite stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Why don't you stay this time, Bunbo," he said. "You are part of my household and have every right to a place in our portraits. Besides, we can always take a second one with just the two of us if Mercury objects—"

"Not at all," she said, and seemed suddenly self-conscious under the look Bunbo shot her. "Please stay for this one."

They settled into position while they waited for Veena to finish preparations, but Master Trapezoid, a minister of the Middle Kingdom visiting from his sojourn on Venus, happened to spy Zoisite and call out to him. Despite Zoisite's attempts to gesture that he was preoccupied, the man continued to wave him over impatiently to the point Zoisite had to tell Veena, "I'm sorry, would you excuse me for a moment? This won't take long—"

"Don't worry about it. These things can take some time to prepare," the portraitist was saying as he bent over her equipment—to which Zoisite nodded and departed with a quick word to Bunbo to keep Mercury company while he straightened out matters.

Startled by how quickly they had gone from the comfort of a group to just the two of them, Bunbo glanced over at the princess of Mercury. The smile she returned him was kind and polite as anything he could have asked for, but he recognized the awkwardness that lay just behind it, mirroring that which he felt in his heart. They had not had to carry a conversation alone before, without Zoisite's comforting presence acting as a median between the two of them.

Sensing he had to say something, Bunbo began, "You look beautiful tonight, Princess," in the most indifferent tone of voice he could muster.

Perhaps it came off a little too indifferent, if her polite chuckle was any indication. What difference did it make, he told himself. Perhaps it was better if she thought he was just making polite conversation than if she knew the truth, that he had been staring at her all evening, at every opportunity presented to him. He had not been able to help it. The gathering of her pale blue dress hugged her high and narrow waist to perfection, just as the trousers she had been wearing upon their first meeting had, maximizing the femininity of her slight frame; and the pale skin of her ankles and shoulders and slender neck, encircled by strands of freshwater pearls that bespoke chastity, seemed to glow in the half-light. A sprig of forget-me-nots held her hair tucked back behind one ear as though teasing him with their namesake.

Turned away from him, her eyes downcast in a delicate profile, she breathed, "Thank you. And you look handsome as well."

Bunbo looked down at his own coal-black suit and gray trousers, which were so ordinary in comparison, and hoped his pleasure at the compliment did not show, though his cheeks were suddenly quite hot.

As fate would have it, that was when Mercury turned to him. "I think you should know, I did so enjoy our talks the other day, about quantum theory and the school of the Vedas."

"Even though it was Zoisite who did most of the talking."

"You said plenty, all of it fascinating. Really, you must learn to give yourself more credit."

Perhaps he should, Bunbo thought, toying with the idea in his head of moving closer to her while Zoisite was occupied; however, such was easier thought than done. "It's my upbringing," he said. "I know my manner seems abrupt, but I don't really mean it that way."

"On the contrary," Mercury told him, "I think you have a way with words. You would not believe how refreshing your honesty is." And Bunbo averted his eyes again; he really wished she would not say such things, if she did not mean them.

So it took him aback when she said suddenly, "Would you tell me a story, boy?"

"Sorry? A-a story?"

"About Zoisite. You must know him better than anyone. I would so like to hear more about him—everything about him, in fact, all that he will not tell me himself."

Bunbo furrowed his brow. "Is that wise, Princess?"

"Oh, I don't mean now. Some other time, of course," she said quickly, but it seemed as though she had missed Bunbo's point.

"I . . . don't know—" he started.

"Please," she said sweetly, raising her brows slightly; and the gentle look in her blue eyes was one he found nearly impossible to refuse. "It would mean so much to me."

Fortunately he was saved from answering by Zoisite's return. He apologized to them for taking so long, rolling his eyes at something the minister had said to him; and not a minute later, Veena announced she was ready. She gave them quick directions for placement, then ultimately told them to act natural; and as they waited still for the flash, Zoisite muttered something out of the corner of his smile and Mercury, sitting beside him, tried her hardest not to laugh.

It was near torture for Bunbo, standing over Zoisite's shoulder, who had that much longer to keep his eyes trained on the camera and away from her countenance to which they were compelled, lest the snapping of the shutters immortalize in film forever the improper direction of his gaze.

—o—

"Rise and shine, sleepy head," a voice interrupted his dreams. A voice from his dreams.

Nephrite groaned and stirred, draping one arm over his eyes as the bed beneath him shifted with new weight. It seemed like only minutes ago he had just been drifting off into sweet slumber; and the stars outside the window that he spied through one cracked eyelid would not accurately tell him the time on this world.

A pair of bold lips descended on his and he was suddenly wide awake, though he closed his eyes as if to try and slip back into whatever dream whence they had come and reached for him. But they were no illusion. He reached up and slid his hand behind Jupiter's neck, her gently waving hair falling over his wrist, and felt himself straddled by her long thighs.

She pulled away and he opened his eyes to her smile. "What time is it?" he mumbled.

"Time you were up. The Queen will have your head if she catches you here," came the coyly whispered response.

"That hardly seems fair. What about you?"

Jupiter sat back, regarding him silently for a moment, and Nephrite felt strangely self-conscious under that stare—the kind of stare one reserved for studying a piece of art, or pining for someone from afar, not when they were right in front of one, captured and helpless. She looked heavenly above him, her strawberry-brown hair tussled and curling over one bared shoulder, but he lowered his gaze, to her thighs that braced his waist, lean and copper under her slip, like the thighs of the huntress Diana.

"What are you implying, Earthman?" she teased him with a crooked smile as he absently slid his hands under the hem of that slip, tracing the lines of muscle with this fingertips. "That a daughter of Jove can't take care of herself?"

He shrugged indifferently, rewarded with her humming laughter.

She pulled one of his hands from her leg, making as though to rise and take him with her, even if she had to physically drag him away. "Come on," she said in a sing-song voice, "you can't stay in bed forever."

"Try me," Nephrite said, and, finding his energy, yanked her back beside him and rolled over, pinning her on her back on the mattress.

Jupiter let out of a shriek of surprise, but though she laughed at his sudden playfulness she was not about to give in and let him have his way so easily. She hooked one arm around his neck and rolled him over her until she had the upper hand, and he had to resort to tickling to gain it back again—not without winning a few unintentional bruises in the fallout.

When at last he stopped and she calmed below him, hair spread out in a halo on the sheets, she said between breaths, "You're a rascal, Nephrite, but I love you."

"So you've said a thousand times."

"Then make it a thousand and one, if it helps you remember when you are back in India."

"How can I ever forget?"

He kissed her again, this time far less chastely. She moaned into his mouth; and where her lips touched his he felt a wonderful buzz, like a slight but steady stream of static electricity, lighting up the nerves throughout his body. When their kiss came to an end, he mourned its loss with a sigh and rolled onto his back beside her, drawing her into his arms. She leaned her head on his shoulder and he breathed in the scent of her that was like summer and roses, burying his lips in her hair. Outside Jupiter's chambers, the sun was rising, its first rosy rays lighting the horizon while it lay still concealed behind the distant hills. For the first time he was incontrovertibly sad to see that beautiful sight. Even knowing how the string of time was stretched on this world could not quell that sudden, if premature, feeling of loss.

"Why must you go anyway?" Jupiter moaned. "Why can't we just stay like this forever?"

Nephrite brushed his lips over her crown, whispering, and hoping it might come as some reassurance, however small: "Even the gods on Olympus must sometime return to Earth."

And count the days, he thought to himself, until their exile will be over.

—o—

The magnificent domes and towers of the Moon Palace still loomed large in the distance though the ship was gathering speed. The first view he had of its grand facade was now also the last, once silver in the starlight, now ivory in the sunlight, reflected perfectly in the mirror-surface of the still platinum waters of the Sea of Serenity, its grounds stretching out in either direction to embrace the shoreline.

Somewhere inside those crystalline halls she was waiting for his return—perhaps at that moment standing on one of the Palace's many balconies watching the ship that must have been no more than a twinkling diamond by now, a firefly skimming the surface of the sea, making its way across the horizon, just as he was watching the buildings fade from this aft window. In his mind's eye, Zoisite could see her like that, dressed like a goddess in that chaste shift, barefoot, that sprig of forget-me-nots braided into a lock of azure hair. That steady and patient, all-encompassing look would be in her eyes that were deep and blue as the clearest noon sky though she swore she would miss him—that look that sometimes reminded him of a hawk soaring above the land, taking in the vastness of her surroundings. To her, he could never be too far away; but if only he could share her optimistic spin on things.

"I fear my kingdom shall never look the same again," he had told her at their parting. "Every time I see a mosque, with its crescent moon above the dome, I shall only be reminded of this place. Each time I hear the fountains of my palace, I will only yearn for your voice."

And she had smiled tenderly as always—a smile from which he wanted to draw the strength to walk away he seemed to lack himself. "I thought the same way once, but give them time and things will return to the way they were," she said. "They always do."

He took a deep breath and shook his head slowly. "I don't mean it that way. Oh I suppose Serenity has been lavish with us, with this world that is testament to all of mankind's powers of cultivation. But it is no more than that. Step beyond the palace walls with their overflowing gardens and you see nothing but a dead satellite."

"Which the Earth is anything but," she agreed.

"I do miss it, Mercury," he said, though it pained him strangely. "Chaotic as it is, it is _alive_. Compared to the wild jungles of the Mekong that beat back civilization, and the simplicity and color of life in the streets of Bangkok and Singapore, this place is like a dream of long ago. _But what a dream it has been. . . ._" he whispered as though to himself, closing his eyes for a moment, as though to test whether the reality he perceived, and had over the last several weeks, would follow his words.

When he looked up again, Mercury was still there, her delicate hands clutching his. "And you'll dream it again," she told him, "when duty calls you back once more. And I'll be waiting here when you do, you know that—your faithful Mercury, flying fast to the Sun's side. Isn't that what you said?"

She had pointed up into the sky, toward the sun that hung low above the horizon. And muted as it was on this world, he could make out a bright but tiny star hovering just above it in the blue—as though its princess had put it there just for him.

He pressed his mouth to hers, desperately as though for the last time, even as her words had reassured his mind there would be other chances, centuries of chances. His heart was somewhat harder of hearing. Her warm lips parted as she sighed against him and kissed him deeper, and her cool fingers caressed the side of his face with the lightest of touches, as though she expected he would already be gone when she opened her eyes.

Reluctantly they parted, and went down to join the others who had fewer reservations about allowing others to witness their courteous displays of affection. Serenity was there to see them off, a bastion of cool calm bracketed by Luna and Artemis; and it seemed to Zoisite as though only their Prince were more loath to leave than any of his officers, as attached as he so clearly was to his Princess, even their loving gazes formed an invisible tether that resisted all force to cut it.

In the privacy of his own quarters aboard the ship to take them back to Earth, Zoisite retrieved the golden ball Mercury had forgotten beside that palace fountain, and rolled and balanced it upon either side of his wrist like Jupiter had done, making it hum and drone. The morning sun fought to remain motionless on its glossy, seamless surface. And, feeling its cool weight in his hand, he smiled at the recollection of their first night, and how radiant Mercury had been in that first dance, and the weight of her hand on his shoulder, and his on her waist, spinning, humming across the floor.

Never had two days felt so long as they had in the Moon Palace, nor two months so short.

* * *

End of Part Six


	9. Part Seven

Part Seven

Twilight was deepening. As she gazed at the dark blue sky through the intricately cut holes in the lattice, she heard the cry of a male peacock. That mournful sound traveled across the still air all the way from the garden, reaching her here in this prison that was her wedding chamber. How she wanted to tear off the necklaces of strung gold coins that encircled her throat like shackles, and the fancy robes that this day signified her as another man's property.

My beloved, she said in her heart, please forgive me. I did not want to betray you like this, but I had no choice. I had to do it, for _his_ sake. . . .

She started when she heard the footsteps of someone approaching. It's him! her mind screamed out in panic. But she willed her body to remain calm and not betray her. Fear gave her enemy power. It made evil stronger.

"Do you regret your decision, Zafirah?" the man said at her distant look, when he had entered the chamber and come to stand beside her. "Your decision to marry me?"

"Why should I?" Her voice was sad, but exuded a composure that soothed her body's limbs that trembled slightly. "You have done what the Prophet decreed. I should be grateful to you for providing me with this security."

A satisfied smile spread on the man's lips to hear that.

"However," she continued, "you have murdered my husband whom I loved dearly and faithfully, and for that I shall never forgive you. Hashim."

"Have you any proof of this alleged murder?" The young amir's eyes narrowed as she turned to him silently. "What does it matter now?" he said, his voice devoid of any of the slippery suaveness he had addressed her with in the past. He did not bother to disguise the lust in his look as he gazed at her pale, slender throat, her green eyes, her golden hair done up beneath the sheer veil. "He is dead, and you are my wife: mine to do with as I please. Come. I have waited long enough for tonight."

He grabbed her wrist roughly, pulling her to her feet with a start and causing the wedding jewelry she wore to jangle cacophonously.

However, just as soon as he had done so, a burning sensation like a jolt of electricity and as cold as ice flash-freezing his veins ran up his arm and through his body. He let go instantly, his breath forced from him in a cloud of vapor.

"You witch!" he screamed when he had regained it.

"I may belong to you," she said slowly, "but I will never consummate this unholy marriage."

"You will! As my wife, you will obey me!"

Hashim moved toward her again, his hand raised to strike her. But his falling hand was stopped before it could reach her, and he felt his whole body repelled by an invisible force. He stumbled back a step, gaping. "What devilry is this? What are you doing?"

"It is your brother's devotion that protects me from your evil intentions," she told him, her eyes meeting his steadily. "Even in death he will not allow you to touch me."

Hashim forced a laugh as he wiped the sweat from his lip with the back of his hand. "My brother was an idiot. He never told me the woman he had fallen so madly in love with was a demon."

The woman remained silent.

"Very well," the young amir said. "If I cannot have you, then I shall take your son."

Her eyes widened, her heart jumping in her chest. "_What?_" She had not foreseen that any such threat had been in the capacity of her brother-in-law. "No. . . . You cannot mean that. What would you do? He is only a child!"

"Then I will make a promise with you never to harm a hair on his head," said the amir, "_if_ you sleep with me."

The woman's shoulders slumped. That was simply not possible. She had made her vows long ago; they could not be broken, not even on account of a man as wretched and perverted of spirit as this. She bowed her head. Forgive me. Now I have truly failed you . . . "I cannot," she whispered.

"What?" The amir grinned, leaning his head closer as though he had not quite heard her. "Are you saying you would rather your own son suffer than grant me just one little pleasure?"

Her shameful silence was all the answer he needed.

"Very well then." The amir seemed almost bursting with pleasure at the sight of her anguish. "If that is what you wish, then I shall leave you in peace. But you _will_ regret it. You will regret ever entering my brother's household. I will make you wish you were dead, knowing what a disgrace of a mother you are, the cause of all that boy's suffering." With that he stormed off, at once both defeated and triumphant.

She whispered after him, "I have no doubt you will," but knew he would not hear.

Tears threatened to overflow her eyes—tears of mourning for her husband and the life that had fallen with him, tears of sadness for her innocent son—but she held them back. What good would they do? She turned toward the lattice screen. The crescent moon hung low on the horizon, as though to bolster her spirits with its presence.

My love, be thankful that you are not here to witness for yourself the debauchery of your younger brother, she said in her heart. As for me, I would die of shame to think that I have brought this upon our son. If not for my vows, if I knew it would not compromise his safety, I would gladly give my life. For whatever befalls him, it will pain me who bore him and who caused it so much worse.

Still, I know in my heart that he will endure, and that he will grow to become more powerful than any of this. In time, the sleeper inside him must awaken. I must have faith, and take comfort in that single, undeniable fact, and for now, let him dream on. This age of evil and darkness will wither away and give rise to something great, even if I am not here to see it. My child, lord of my soul, he will help bring a thousand years of light to this world, if I am but patient for a few more.

I.Idyll

The white trunks of the Martian forest were like the pillars of a cathedral, the canopy of dark branches above them the vaults through which shafts of light pierced the shade, catching the motes of dust alight, while ferns and soft moss blanketed the rust-colored earth, absorbing the sound of their horses' footfalls. Every now and then, the wind could be heard howling through the tops of the trees that reached some hundreds of feet into the air due to the gravity of their world, but it did not reach the hunting party beneath the branches, where there was only stillness, punctuated by an occasional bird cry.

It was not often one of the giant fallow deer entered this deep into the wood, but in their hunt for the smaller varieties of tusked deer, Princess Jupiter's man Gesen had struck upon fresh signs of a young male in the telltale scratches left by his antlers on the trunks of the trees. Princess Mars, who was acutely familiar with the woods of her homeworld, led the party that consisted of Endymion and Zoisite, Nephrite and Jupiter. A buck of their quarry's size would be quite a prize indeed for the visitors from Earth if they could bring it down; and the excitement of their earlier catches had not worn down the Prince's two officers, but rather the adventure hunting one of the legendary giant deer promised encouraged their competitive spirit that was always lurking just beneath the surface of their brotherly camaraderie.

They found the buck grazing near a stream, and though Gesen had promised a young one, it was already as tall as a man at the shoulder, sporting massive antlers that must have spanned ten feet from tip to tip. "A healthy specimen," Mars spoke in a low voice to the others where they waited with their mounts. "He has obviously been eating well. I wonder what he's doing, coming so far into the trees by himself."

"Maybe he wandered off in search of better fare," said Zoisite.

"If that's the case, it will be the death of him," Nephrite said beside him. "His mobility is severely hampered by the trees. He won't outrun us."

"No," Mars agreed, "not easily. But once he realizes that, he may decide to go down fighting."

Nephrite snorted quietly. Both he and his mount looked eager for a race. "I'll take my chances with that," he said, but Endymion quickly put out a hand to calm him. As though reading his mind, Jupiter said at the same time: "This one calls for a shot that is swift and true to make quick work of it—like a bolt of lightning."

"Are you insulting my aim, princess?" Nephrite quipped with a sarcasm that was more intimate than offended.

"The kill should go to the Endymion," Mars told her comrade. "He is our guest here, and it is only fitting the Prince of Earth challenge the prince of the forest."

Whether she issued that challenge with confidence in his skills at the hunt or a lack thereof was not clear; in any case, however, Endymion nodded his gratitude, studying his opponent as he gave orders to the rest of his party. "Nephrite, Zoisite, wear down our quarry and keep him boxed in among the denser growth."

"Sir."

"Princesses, I may need your steady arms to back me up."

The young women uttered an affirmative, tightening their grips on their reigns; and with that as their signal the Prince's two officers spurred their mounts into a sprint with a cluck of the tongue, bouncing over the ferns in quick pursuit of the buck. It turned and took flight at the sound, faster than a creature of its size appeared capable of to look at it, but it could not shake them. Through twist and turn through the wood, the two were never far behind. Zoisite could hear Nephrite encouraging his mare on from the other side of the grove as he kept abreast of their quarry, while the sound of their horses' hoof beats and the buck's much heavier ones on the hard earth resonated under the canopy. The panicked buck tried to switch back and shake them, looking for a wider clearance between the trees, but to little avail. The two stayed fast by its side, slowly pulling ahead, aiming to encircle the beast in an ever-narrowing arc.

Not long after, Endymion caught up with them, together with his mount flying in silently and surely as the wind itself from their aft. Releasing the reigns and sitting erect in the saddle, he put an arrow to his bow's string and pulled back, carefully lining up the fatal trajectory that would put his arrow between the stag's ribs. He let it fly.

The buck stumbled, but the arrow had missed its mark and the beast, sensing that it was boxed in, halted in its tracks and reacted on instinct. In its desperation it rounded on its attackers with head lowered and the sharp points of its massive antlers reared for battle. Fortunately Endymion was outside of its range at the precise moment, but Nephrite's mare, in his attempts to encircle the beast, had all but run right into the path of those swinging antlers. She whinnied in alarm and rose on her hind legs, kicking at the air and throwing Nephrite from his saddle.

"Nephrite!" Jupiter yelled the warning Zoisite could not, for his breath seemed to have left him in anticipation as he circled around, interceding for his comrade just in time.

Though he could sense his horse's uncertainty by the wild flutter of its muscles between his legs, he charged anyway into the buck's line of attack with one hand raised toward it. What must have looked to be a futile gesture was, however, in fact quite the opposite. The buck's antlers clattered against the shield of energy he raised with all the brutal force a rutting bull could muster; and though its progress toward Nephrite was effectively stopped, the recoil threatened to knock Zoisite from his own saddle.

The princesses wasted no time in coming to his assistance. Just as Zoisite was raising his hand to protect Nephrite, Jupiter and Mars let fly their own arrows, striking the deer's tendons and bringing it momentarily to its knees.

Endymion returned with the finishing shot. With nowhere to run and the Prince's arrow buried deep in its breast, the giant fallow buck finally wobbled and collapsed.

Then Zoisite dismounted and helped his comrade to his feet. "Are you hurt?" Jupiter panted as she pulled up beside them, but Nephrite merely laughed as he brushed needles and dirt from his clothes with his riding gloves. "Aside from a bruised pride, never felt better. Or more alive."

She grinned at that. "That was quite an impressive display of corralling, you two. For a couple of sheltered Earthmen, that is."

"It's all in the calculations, my lady," Zoisite answered for his comrade, who was straightening his heavy clothing. "After all, everything is physics."

To his surprise, Jupiter wriggled an eyebrow at that. "_Everything_, you say?"

Then she left Zoisite to wonder at her meaning. Nephrite's shrug and ambiguous chuckle were little help.

The Prince knelt down beside the felled deer with Mars by his side. When she praised the sureness of his killing shot, he said humbly, "The butcher who knows the Way never dulls his blade."

She stared at him for a moment, perhaps having found herself guilty of underestimating the Prince of Earth, or perhaps with a growing sense of admiration, as she said with a curious smile, "How true that is. I can see why Princess Serenity favors you. She will be thrilled to hear her Prince has caught himself such a magnificent prize as this."

"Without her here to share this world with me, though, the significance of it feels less than perhaps it should. Is that forward of me to say, Lady Mars?"

"No. Or at least I do not think so." She could not keep the smile from her lips, and the expression made her look bashful as a young girl. "It is quite thoughtful of you, in my opinion. And in any case, somehow I know she would say the same thing."

Gesen and the servants who had accompanied them on the hunt arrived soon after to prepare the thousand-pound carcass for transport. While they were thus occupied, Mars clasped her hands and led a solemn prayer of thanks for the success of the hunt, which Endymion reverently joined in. It was difficult to deny the power in Mars's presence; she was not only a royal representative of her world, but its chief priestess as well, intimately tied with the spirit of the planet itself. And so it seemed only fitting that she would offer the blood they spilled as a token of gratitude and peace to the red earth beneath them, and to those spirits dwelling within the trees and stones of the wood itself, which continued to allow such rich abundance of life to prosper on such a delicate planet.

While marveling at the sheer size of the deer's antlers from close up—each was nearly as long as a person was tall—Zoisite turned to look at Nephrite, only to see his comrade watching Mars's prayer with fascination. "Your Jupiter is going to be jealous if you keep staring like that," he mumbled playfully, though he knew it was not Mars herself that had captured Nephrite's attention.

They retraced their steps to rejoin the rest of their party, and together made the leisurely ride back to the forest lodge on the lower slope of Mount Olympus in which they had for the meantime been staying. The warm rays of the afternoon sun filtering down through the cool forest air caressed the leather tunics and long sleeves of the young women's hunting attire with mottled light as they led the way—up rocky trails where strange, winged reptiles unseen on Earth for eons watched their progress, lichens crunched like dry autumn leaves underfoot, and waterfalls clear as crystal trickled over rust-colored cliffs. In the dreamlike haze that followed the excitement of the hunt, everything sparkled.

At the lodge, bracing the hillside like the great wooden palaces of Eastern legend, Mars's grandfather waited to greet them upon their return. Seeing the spry and dark old man's affection for Jadeite, whom he was already (much to his granddaughter's utter embarrassment) calling "Son," it quickly became obvious to his comrades how the young retired emperor had so easily become attached to this world. It reminded him so much of his homeland, he had confessed to them sometime earlier; each day he spent here his affinity for the planet—and, needless to say, certain of its denizens—only deepened. Even if Princess Mars indignantly scolded her grandfather for his forwardness, it was more difficult for her to completely hide the fact that her feelings were likewise.

Sundown on the red planet brought with it a true atmospheric rainbow. Locals were fond of boasting that no two sunsets were ever the same color, and so far the Prince and his officers had seen no reason to dispute that claim.

And as the stars began to peek out of the deepening twilight, the lodge filled with laughter and music set to a royal feast of game. Pheasant and rabbit and antelope, among some of the more recognizable dishes to the Earthmen, complimented a centerpiece of venison. The giant deer buck had enough meat on its frame to feed their party many times over; and Grandfather promised its impressive pair of antlers would be well-received in the Middle Kingdom court. It had been thousands of years since Earthmen had hunted that buck's ilk. Now the giants of the world were all but gone from the civilized Earth, only their memory remaining in the human subconscious to remind men of a time when they were closer to the gods.

"But civilization does not automatically mean man has to distance himself from the gods who reside in nature," Grandfather quickly amended, licking the warm fat of the meat from his fingers with a smack of his lips. "Take this planet, for example. Our people have long sought how best to maximize human comfort without affecting the delicate functioning of the planet."

"Which is my opinion on art precisely." Jadeite leaned forward in interest, excited for an honest debate. "What is beautiful is not man's dominance over nature, but rather his willingness to submit to her chaos in order that he might find that one pure kernel of perfection and hold it out for all to admire."

"You find beauty in chaos, Jadeite?" Venus said. "I would have to disagree with you there. Something unexpected can certainly excite our minds and hearts, but where we find true contentment is in things going right."

"Actually, I think what Jadeite is saying," Mercury said to her, "is not entirely different. We refer to nature as being in a state of chaos or randomness, when in fact it follows its own sense of order that human beings have merely lost their awareness of. What the ancients knew in their hearts and modern man seeks to quantify is really the same thing. It is the true nature of the thing men refer to, inadequately, as God."

"Everything is physics," Jupiter repeated, nudging Nephrite knowingly with her elbow though she said, "Isn't that right, Zoisite?"

Mercury looked between the two, but quashed the distinct feeling that she was missing some private joke. "One could say that, I suppose." (Jupiter stifled her laughter.) "Ultimately it all depends on how satisfied we are with our method of understanding the universe around us."

Nephrite nodded at that. "The only question then is what sacrifices mankind is willing to make to learn the secrets of the cosmos. Even spacemen, though they pretend otherwise, must have faced this issue when they civilized the outer worlds that had been barren of life. When they brought their wisdom to Earthmen millennia ago, did they take into consideration that they might be polluting some inborn innocence in the process of making man's existence more fulfilling?"

"Man can break the bonds of Earth and fly through space, in other words," Zoisite said, "but the stars lose their mystery."

His comrade smiled at that. "No," he said. "The stars never lose their mystery. That is one thing I feel here. I felt the same standing in Queen Serenity's presence. Earth, and Venus as well, for all their richness are forever changing—and therein lie their greatest strengths—but on this world, on this mountain, one can truly sense the utter insignificance of the moment next to the timelessness of the stars. The energy in this place is old."

"Mount Olympus, the tallest peak in the solar system, where the immortal gods themselves were said to dwell," Mars said as though to herself. "Its fire may be sleeping far below the earth, but it remains a testament to the planet's awesome creative power, and for that we hold it sacred."

"The planet's bowels working right," said Jadeite, "rends and pulverizes its surface. But the sun's violent self-consumption makes life possible tens and hundreds of millions of miles away. No, I do not think you can separate the act of creation from the act of destruction."

"Well, my boy," said Grandfather, "no one is disputing _that_."

But their minds could not be contented with philosophical matters for long, and they eventually returned to more frivolous subjects; recounting the day's hunt, teasing and bragging to one another of their exploits, and dredging up old stories that their line of conversation reminded them of made the evening pass all too quickly. Nephrite's brush with danger on the hunt made Jadeite recall the time they went on campaign in the northern territories in their adolescence, and Nephrite had saved his cocky behind from an embarrassing brush with death. Like some satiric essay, his elaborate and imaginative narrative seemed in the end to have all been for a moral, even if neither of them took it seriously, that cocksureness almost always backfired—to comedic effect in hindsight.

When they had had enough of the spotlight, having failed to drag Zoisite and a suddenly shy Kunzite into their gags, they steered the conversation in the direction of the young ladies—who, after so many glasses of wine, proved to be just as ribald as their male companions. They gave Endymion a hard time about his pining for an absent Serenity, who was forbidden to travel so far from her palace for as long as her companions were able, but their intentions were good and their admiration for his faithfulness shone through. Mars's grandfather pretended to be scandalized by the talk of young people these days one moment, and was merciless to the other planets' princesses the next, before drunkenly breaking into song and falling asleep. Gesen entertained them with the simple balancing tricks of a street performer, except that the objects he balanced hung suspended and danced in midair, no strings attached; it was his unusual telekinetic skill, Jupiter explained, that had made him perfect for the position of her chaperon and body guard, even if he did have an unfair advantage when it came to one-on-one archery competitions.

At a certain point their conversation lulled as they all seemed simultaneously to run out of things to say, and fatigue finally was allowed a chance to catch up with them. As they listened to the musicians playing an easy melody on their strings, a certain pattern in the latest song captured Zoisite like a fish on a line, tugging him along for the ride, and he hummed it to himself as if recounting something heard in a vivid dream. Before long its notes and metre coaxed a verse from the recesses of his memory, and he caught himself fitting its words aloud to the music:

"Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars  
Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars  
In other words, hold my hand  
In other words, darling, kiss me"

It had been years since he had sung in front of others—indeed, the last time he had been a different person—and the clear tone of his voice, as much as the perfect union of the words to the song, made the others stir and take notice. "Yes . . ." Kunzite said slowly as he let the whole sink into his mind, "that's it precisely!"

Venus stirred groggily beneath his arm. "What is what, darling?"

At the sound of her voice, as though just remembering where he was, Kunzite faltered uncharacteristically for words; but fortunately Mercury said, breathlessly, "This music . . . It is as though it was created for those words. But where have I heard them before?"

"I could tell you where," Jadeite spoke up, shooting a wry grin in Zoisite's direction. "I remember writing them myself."

"Wasn't that the poem written in the Chinese style you submitted for the royal anthology some years back?" Endymion said.

To which Jadeite nodded in gratitude. "I'm pleased that you remember my work, my prince. I thought the parallelism was particularly powerful, a perfect combination of classic technique and fresh imagery, but the splash I was waiting for was in reality more like a ripple." He shrugged dramatically. "Alas, such is the irony of fate. My most genius piece of work and it gets buried among a thousand verses on the same old spring blossoms and summer dreams, while this rascal over here," he pointed at Zoisite, "without a single poetic bone in his body (as he'll adamantly tell you himself), makes something truly inspired of it with absolutely no effort on his part. Where is the justice in the universe?"

"I make no claim to it," Zoisite said with a chuckle, trying to sound indifferent. "You wrote the words, my friend. Even if I just put the two together, the credit belongs to you."

"No, it's too late. The moment has already passed, in front of all these witnesses too." As he waved his comrade's attempt at appeasement off, Zoisite laughed. "When they sing that song in the streets of Kyoto they'll say it was written by the Elephant King of Siam, and forget all about their own retired emperor."

"If so, that is only because music is the purest medium for the expression of one's feelings, of one's love. Anyone can write words, but it is a truly visionary soul that can write words that sing from the page—as you have done."

"Ah, so you think flattery will make me forget this offense?" Jadeite quipped. Then, as though it had just occurred to him: "Which reminds me, have I ever told you ladies the story behind the Elephant King moniker?"

"My Lord in heaven. . . ." Zoisite rolled his eyes, but in his chest his heart leaped painfully. "_Please_, Jadeite, I beg you not to go any further!"

"Need I remind you, _my friend_, that the gauntlet was thrown down by yourself."

"But nobody wants to hear that old story. Some private jokes are ruined when you try to explain them to others, Jadeite."

"Now I _certainly_ wouldn't mind hearing the story," Mercury said with a playful smile, but Zoisite was saved by some fiasco Jadeite's love poetry had just reminded Venus of; and as she cajoled Jupiter into helping her tell the tale, Zoisite felt for the first time like he could kiss the princess of Venus in gratitude, even though he was fairly confident Jadeite's account of his first time in Japan would have been exaggerated with lies that cleverly neutered the story of anything genuinely embarrassing or private between the two.

Amused and distracted by the two young women trying to get their facts straight, Zoisite slipped an arm around Mercury's shoulders and was pleasantly surprised when she leaned closer to him despite all the witnesses surrounding them. This was all he needed right here, the warm, mirthful conversation and comforting presence of close friends on a majestic and alien planet far from the Middle Kingdom and all the headaches that came with it. This world filled him with a sense of peace and wonder throughout that reminded him of those carefree days when he was a child in the deserts of Araby; and for a little while he was content to forget that there was ever anything other than this.

——

Gazing down at Venus as she lay stretched on the furs of his bed, Kunzite thought his heart might burst with contentedness. With her long, golden hair fanned out around her, her fair skin glowing with the faintest sheen of perspiration, one delicate arm curled beside her head like a shield from the midday sun, it was as though a goddess had come to him out of the very wilderness that surrounded them on this mountainside.

Her cheeks darkened under that gaze, and he watched her breasts heave as she exhaled in silent, abashed amusement. "What?"

"Nothing," he murmured. "It's just that you're so beautiful at this moment . . ." He wanted to save it. "You're making me fall in love with you, princess."

Her smile widened. "I can't help it," she teased him. "It comes with the name. Some sort of cosmic curse."

"Really? I see it as a blessing."

"Really. . . ."

Their flirtatious banter melted away under his sudden kiss. This tender moment, in the dead of a Martian night, could have been one of a dozen others, yet he felt its tenuousness, felt the fleetingness of time like only a moment of that kind of blissful happiness could cause one to feel. It made him sad when Venus pulled herself away and sat up.

He found himself saying without thinking, "Where are you going?" He dreaded she might say, back to her own bed.

Instead Venus gave him an enigmatic smile and said, "Nowhere." She tugged at something loose on her nightgown, and momentarily he saw that she had worked the ribbon that threaded through the top of the bodice free. She sat back on her heels at his feet, and took his left foot in her hands, cradling it between her knees.

Her hands were warm on his bare skin, her touch soft and loving. As he watched fascinated, she tied the ribbon around his ankle.

"What's this for?" he asked her.

"It's a promise." She blushed again. "A sign of my promise, that wherever I go, I will always find my way back to you again . . . my friend."

_Friend_. . . . She spoke that word so carefully, yet to Kunzite it was a recognition of the fragility of their time here that some irrational part of him feared would jinx their happiness. "It shouldn't be a princess's job to make such promises," he said.

She chuckled warmly. "But you're no longer on Earth, remember."

"I don't have anything to give you in return."

She shrugged, as if to say she did not mind, but her downward gaze that was so trained on the ribbon told him she felt differently.

"Very well." Kunzite hoisted himself up. "In that case, let me do you one better and promise you this. If something should ever happen to us, if something beyond our control should ever separate us, I'll come looking for you in the next life. And I won't rest until I've found you."

"Do you swear it?"

"I swear on my left foot."

Venus's smile was radiant then, as she wrapped a long, bare arm about his shoulders.

——

Jadeite found his princess on the roof of the Martian palace. Her back was turned to him as she gazed out over the slope of Mount Olympus at the capital below, and the tiny network of cities and fields and canals that stretched out far beneath them toward the Amazon Bay in the south, at the western edge of this world. He was aware of all that was there laid out before her, but his gaze remained focused on the feminine curve of her back, from her narrow and stately shoulders over which her raven hair fell like water, to the shapely hips and legs he knew to be hidden beneath the heavy brocade of her divided skirt. It never ceased to amaze him how she had changed physically from that young tomboy he had met as a child, though she still pretended to be exactly the same.

With a beating of wings, two coal-black crows larger than any of their ilk on Earth glided down toward her, and she elegantly raised one arm out to them in beckoning, clutching the long sleeve of her blouse in her white fingers. The first alighted on her wrist like a falcon, the second on the banister, and he watched as she whispered words he could not hear to them with a smile on her lips. Perhaps they were not even words that existed in any human language, by the way the crows cocked their heads at the sound of her voice.

The bird perched on her arm tilted its head in Jadeite's direction. At that, and knowing he would be found out at any moment anyway, Jadeite cleared his throat as he approached to announce his presence.

Mars turned to acknowledge him with a smile, then turned back to stroke the birds' wings tenderly. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not too long, I suppose. Long enough to learn my lady's secret."

"Her secret?"

"Her ability to communicate with animals," Jadeite whispered near her ear, and Mars grinned all over again.

"These are my dear friends, Phobos," she said, pointing to one crow, then to the other, "and Deimos."

"Fear and Terror."

"Imposing names, I know, but they will not harm you. Unless you give them cause, of course."

"Oh, I don't doubt that." He took in the two crows' size again, and made a mental vow not to try any of his usual antics on the young woman in front of them, lest he lose a finger or two—or an eye. "You've named them after the moons."

"Just as the moons watch over this planet," Mars told him, "so these crows watch over me. Our souls are connected."

Jadeite lowered his voice and asked boldly, "Are our souls connected?"

Her hand stilled on Deimos's back, and he could not tell if she hesitated because she did not know the answer, or because it was all too clear. She muttered something to the crow and he and his brother lifted themselves back into the sky. It almost seemed to Jadeite as though they were playing a game to occupy themselves as they glided upon the updrafts far enough away to be out of earshot, but not far enough to lose sight of their mistress. Then Mars took his elbow and bid him follow her to what she promised was a special place.

She took him to a quiet spot nestled between the burnished onion domes of the palace, where the view of the foothills and the sea beyond was just as fantastic and the breeze less intrusive; and where the real Phobos and Deimos watched over them, their asymmetrical, pockmarked surfaces seemingly translucent in the clear, deep blue of the sky. In the distance to the southeast, the Peacock Mountain silently blew a fine cloud of steam from its crater, as it had for a thousand years. The erratic puffs thinned in the upper atmosphere, disappearing into a cloudless sky.

It was there that Mars spun around to face him, hands clasped behind her back in an unusually girlish gesture, and asked him, "Was there any more to that song of yours, Jadeite?"

"My song?"

"That poem that Zoisite put to music."

"You liked that, did you?" Her sheepish smile as she tucked a lock of her long, glossy black hair behind her ear was affirmation enough. "As a matter of fact, there was. It went something like . . . 'Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forevermore,'" he sang clumsily, trying to remember the melody. "'You are all I long for, all I worship and adore/ In other words, please be true/ In other words, I love you.'"

"You see?" she said when he had finished. "It was meant for music all along."

He looked down, unused to the feeling of his own cheeks burning.

She sat down beside the banister and turned to look back at him. "Did you write it about me?"

"It isn't proper for a young lady to ask such a question, is it?" Jadeite chided her, but he said just as quickly, "But yes. I wrote it for you. For how you made me feel that time we first met in the Moon Palace."

"Even though you had only seen me once. And I wasn't exactly kind. . . ."

"Mm, 'not exactly kind' is something of an understatement, princess. You were cruel, plain and simple." He took a seat beside her, unable to hide his grin, and tucked back the same stubborn lock of hair that had worked itself free. "But you made quite an impression on me nonetheless. No matter where I was, I never forgot the spark in your eyes. Oh, when did that spark become your fire? . . ."

Mars sighed. "You haven't changed at all, have you? Always a casanova. Always a li—"

She shut her mouth quickly, regretting what she had almost said, but she had said enough. "Always what?" Jadeite said. "A liar? No. If I told a lie it was only to help myself forget you, because I thought you didn't care for me."

"How could you think— Of course, I cared for you! I just was never very good at showing it. But every time I thought of how I had treated you, every time Grandfather spoke of you, my heart would leap of its own accord and I could not deny it if I wanted to." She smiled to herself. "Grandfather is very fond of you, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"He already speaks of you as though we were married, but you can't fault him for it. He raised me like his own child. A part of him wants to see me continue to serve the planet's spirit nobly as I have been doing, but yet another part is eager for great-grandchildren."

She said the last part with just a hint of derisiveness, but even Jadeite knew better than to trust it. He said gently, "What is it _you_ want, princess?"

Mars blinked up at him. "What is best for the Silver Millennium. I am the Princess Serenity's faithful servant, and you are Endymion's."

"Objective and ambivalent as always, Mars," Jadeite sighed.

"I am not ambivalent—"

"Torture me no longer, then. Tell me: haven't you any desires of your own?"

He was treading on dangerous ground, he knew, by the way her eyes were slowly narrowing. But what he wanted to hear himself he could not say. A confession his feelings were returned? Ah, but that was never the problem.

"You know," he said instead before she could answer, "in my country, they call this planet Firestar. The Romans envisioned it as the heart of the god who governed war-making, because surely, they thought, only bloodshed could soak the soil of the planet so red."

"What are you saying, Jadeite?" Mars sounded skeptical. "Are you trying to make a point about the Martian spirit being a belligerent one?"

He shook his head, a smile on his lips. "Those are your words, not mine. If anything I was going to remark what complete peace I feel being on this world. Nephrite was right: the eternal calm here fits more what the ancients would have expected of the planet Venus, if their names are any indication. Then again, even Venus was notorious for her violence when crossed. I must remind myself that even this planet was shaped by cataclysmic forces; it could not sport the largest volcanoes and the deepest valleys if it had not first been ruptured and torn apart at its seams. Through agony it was born, while Fear and Terror gazed down upon it."

"You're speaking nonsense again."

"Am I?"

Nonetheless, something poetic and distant had entered his voice, like a man speaking to himself.

"You think I don't know the history of my own world?"

Jadeite chuckled lightly. "No, princess. If anything, I think you know its history only too well. As you said, your souls are connected. But fire and blood are sacred things, and have been since the dawn of consciousness when we Earthmen worshiped our gods with the only things we had to transcend the base earth around us. Flames rising into the sky; blood steaming in the cold air. Battle itself is a feat of great passion, is it not? And victory on the hunt sustains life. Blood is spilled in passion, and the flame burns and scars the memory into us."

"Like this scarred world," Mars said distantly.

Jadeite leaned closer to whisper in her ear, his breath stirring the dark veil of her hair: "Can you still hear its heartbeat deep below us, princess, echoing the pounding of the blood in our veins?"

She closed her eyes as he spoke and retreated to some place of peace within her mind, tilting her head slightly so that she might catch a faint strain of that heartbeat he spoke of—whether the planet's or his own—and all that it might reveal.

——

Smooth cliffs as red as rust rose up on either side of Bunbo's boat, glowing in the midday sunlight and reflecting like hills of copper in the crystal mirror surface of this strait within the great Sea of the Mariners. Though they were quite a distance away from him, their sheer faces that rose up hundreds of stories seemed to tower intimately over his tiny boat like the walls of a fortress of giants, leaning in to whisper their secrets of ancient creation to him on the wind. There was nothing with which he could even think of comparing these walls on Earth, or even the Moon, for it seemed as though some all-powerful force had taken this planet that was smaller than his own and made everything out of proportion. On Mars, rivers were seas, lakes oceans, and volcanoes grew to the size of small satellites, whole worlds in and of themselves. The monumental features of this world were to him, in a word, awe-inspiring.

He passed narrow sheets of rock that had been torn by the earth and sculpted by the water and the wind into fins, rising out of the waves like the backs of fabled leviathans. In places the forces of nature had chiseled great holes in the softer layers of rock, leaving windows that let the blue sky through, or bridges that the surface of the sea completed perfectly in its reflection—or overhangs as big as amphitheaters that led an Earthling to recall a primitive memory held deep within his subconscious of a time without agriculture or permanent settlements when every thing in the world around himself was magic.

Scraggly junipers and rugged wide-leafed pines clung to the cliffs with bleached, knotty trunks and roots that looked as if they would let go of the rock and plummet to the sea at any moment. Every once in a while a raptor circled above looking for prey among the cliffs, and for a moment it made Bunbo feel like home, until he reminded himself of the scale of everything, including the fauna, on this world. That familiar-looking hawk might have had a wingspan easily as wide as he was tall.

He let the current take him downstream, and eventually he came to the place Mercury had told him about. It was a small, wooded island that rose out of the strait where the walls were not so close or massive, representing the highest point for miles which was capped by a rounded structure built in the Greek style. There was a small dock on one side of the island where Bunbo moored his boat. Then he slung his day pack over his back and began to climb up the steps that had been hewn out of the rock face. A tall, copper post-and-lintel gate at the entrance brought him for a moment back to his childhood in Japan.

Tall cypress trees shaded the steep climb, and a pattern of turquoise moss and lichen dotted the stairs. Bunbo did not meet anyone along the way, nor when he reached the outlook at the top, but it was difficult to say when the last visitors to the island had left. In his own home country, he knew it was not necessarily the case that the most overgrown shrines were also the least well-tended. Rather, the thick growth of plant life was a sign that the spirits of nature favored the place so as to make it prosper this much, and it would be irreverent of human beings to seek to undo that prosperity for some aesthetic sake.

The structure that stood in the clearing at the very top was shaped like an oracle's temple: a perfect, enclosed circle surrounded by an outer ring of sturdy, white columns, capped by a copper dome roof the same color as the stone cliffs. On second thought, Bunbo mused, the dome must have been made of gold to have gained such a ruddy patina over however many centuries it had stood here, rather than the turquoise finish that copper soon achieved.

From below, the temple, its dome glinting in the sunlight, had appeared to hover on the very edge of a cliff, but from this perspective it proved to exude an air of complete stability that was needed to balance the feeling of disorientation one felt looking at such a view. From this height, the network of long islands and straits that made up this mere section of the Sea of the Mariners, seemingly stretching on out to eternity, and the rich variety of life both human and otherwise that lived on top of its austere cliffs, was revealed to the human eye. From this height, Bunbo could see, however faintly, the very curve of the planet itself. At this moment, he was very far from the Martian capital.

He went inside the temple, which was larger than one could have imagined from the outside, as though space had been warped inside of it. The interior was plain but for the cracks and discolorations nature had given it. It magnified every sound made within it, as though if one only lay still and listened he might catch the sound of the planet itself, its heartbeat of magma flowing deep underground.

That was precisely what Bunbo did. Sunlight streamed in through the large oculus in the dome, warming the center of the floor, and he put down his pack and lay down beside it to watch the clear blue sky overhead. He imagined a younger Mercury coming here alone like himself, and staring upwards in this same sense of wonder, experiencing the same feeling of insignificance. When sunset came, he could watch the sky through that hole gradually change colors, and at night see the stars drift by, watching for any constellations he might recognize. Would they seem different in his ancient place, that predated by far any ruin he had ever visited on Earth? Would he be able to catch a faint strain of the "music of the spheres" Nephrite so often spoke of?

For now the birdsong of the island's woods and the warmth of the sunlight beside him lulled him into a dream-filled midday slumber, a sleep to span a millennium.

——

_We spent those few years between our meeting and the present in pleasure. All the luxuries of youth were ours, and the horizon of possibility was wide. Though I was only an observer, princess, I experienced yours and my master's happiness as though it were my own. Amid the grandeur of Mars and its monuments to the system's distant birth whose austerity moved us to awe, or wrapped in the heat of Venus's tropics and its rich abundance of botanical life whose only rival was Earth herself, there was no shortage to our pleasure. We dined on foods which made us swear we had died and gone to paradise, and spent long nights singing and laughing so hard our bellies ached. We skated on the frozen surface of Europa, and on Io watched the glowing haloes of volcanoes erupting at night from a palace nestled among the ice spires, while the planet Jupiter loomed like the awesome visage of a god himself on the horizon, greater than anything any of the terrestrial worlds could have prepared us for. _

_It was not just we few who enjoyed such prosperity, either. All the planets of the solar system benefited from a newfound cooperation. As Venus increased food production, just as Zoisite dreamed, the Earth responded with scholars who were eager to bring the thinking of the planetary kingdoms back with them to their home countries, and even contribute to the advancement of mankind's collective learning themselves. Once the pathway for space travel was made straight and open, the flow of people and material from one world to another could only come with greater ease; but such was doubly true for ideas. _

_Trod upon and all but abandoned was the fear of the spaceman, and the naivety of Earth. Young princesses of earthly kingdoms dreamed of lunar gentlemen who would whisk them away to impossible palaces of crystal and stardust, where they would wear the latest fashions and be liberated from the restrictions placed upon their sex in their homelands; and Venusian and Jovian ladies made plans of marrying into Earth royalty and inheriting all the wealth it had to offer—culture, land and connections, and exotic jewels that would make them sparkle like the night sky. The young men of the Imperial Service worked harder than ever in their scholarly pursuits for an opportunity to see a new world beyond their imaginations, and if they should return home from their travels with a bride all the better. _

_In those few years, the ministers of the old court whose xenophobia had once been praised as prudence saw their power begin to waste away. No longer did a young man's enthusiasm for space call into question his loyalty toward his own planet and its traditions; such a thought was outdated and crude, an embarrassing holdover from a less enlightened time. Queen Serenity's influence was paramount, for she was at once to Earthmen and spacemen alike so much more than a distant monarch—she was a symbol of all things to be desired: justice, prosperity, and fraternity for all nations. _

_Did we lose our sense of identity as a result? None of us believed that to be true at the time. We knew who we were and what history belonged to us. We appreciated beauty where it existed, and sought to mend the mistakes of our past with a collective future of righteousness. What we wanted to create, from the goodness of our hearts, was nothing short of a living paradise. Will history fault us for our dreams? Perhaps that is not for even me to say. _

_Perhaps, too, our happiness had nothing to do with what happened, except in what ways we might have been blinded by it. Who is to say that was not our right? At the time, we really thought those days would last forever, didn't we?_

——

Artemis made haste when he received the message. When he first glimpsed Luna pacing the hallway, her head bowed in solemn thought, he feared the worst. Even the smile she flashed him when he rushed forward to take her arms was marred by tears in the corners of her eyes.

"I came as soon as I heard," he said, watching those eyes. "What has happened?"

To his surprise, when she spoke, there was beneath her words a low rumble of pleasure. "Oh, Artemis," she told him, "the oracle has given me such wonderful news—"

"You were in communication with Pluto?" When one who was not the Queen spoke to the guardian of that border world, it was rare and usually under grave circumstances. He was not so quickly reassured. "Luna, this—"

But Luna shook her head. "I could not hold it in a moment longer. I had to tell you right away. What Pluto summoned me to tell me, is that I will have a child—that _we_ will have a child, a daughter, whom we shall name Diana."

She paused for his reaction, but suddenly Artemis found himself speechless. He could only stare at her and gape as the meaning sank in, and exhale a small laugh, at once of disbelief, relief, and a shyness he had not felt in years. "A child?" he finally managed. "You and I? Are you. . . ."

"Not at the present. But do you know what this means?" Luna said, her voice rising in tandem with his. "It means our race will live on in the Silver Millennium! We will survive another generation. Is that not good news?"

It was good news indeed, but Artemis could express that in no better way than by throwing his arms around Luna and holding her tight. The tears in her eyes, tears of happiness he now understood, threatened to overflow his own; he could feel them being churned up by the rumbling in his throat. He shut his eyes tight as he whispered over her shoulder, "Oh, Luna . . . I cannot tell you how happy I am at this moment to know that." The reverberation of her purring over his heart was all he needed to know she felt the same.

——

Good news came from the southern kingdom of Earth while they were sailing the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, news that Zoisite's plan for Venus's agriculture had after almost four years become a great success. The numbers that had just come in were astounding, so that even the hard-lining ministers of that planet could not deny the good it had done the Silver Millennium. For the first time, there was a surplus of food grown in the planetary kingdoms, and the agricultural ministers of his own territory on Earth felt themselves freed of their age-old shackles.

"Now they can haggle with the Moon Kingdom a proper price," Zoisite related the message's contents to Bunbo, who had brought it to his attention, "instead of rationing their own children's suppers in order to dress the tables of spacemen."

"Princess Mercury will be pleased to hear the news," Bunbo said.

He did not sound half as excited as Zoisite was, however, and, his own green eyes sparkling, he searched his apprentice's face for a glimmer of any emotion beneath its stony surface as he said, "And you, Bunbo? Are you not proud of how far your homeworld has come in being a top competitor?"

"Earth has always been a competitor," Bunbo began; but he corrected something within himself as soon as those words were out of his mouth, and instead smiled at Zoisite, even if the smile did not quite reach his eyes. "But I do hope this quiets some of your more vehement nay-sayers."

Zoisite returned his smile. Some nine years had passed since he first brought Bunbo under his wing, and though in those years he had hardly seemed to age a day himself, adolescence passed slowly for the boy as well. He was still not quite Zoisite's height, and something of his boyish self remained in his soft face and small lips, and his wide, dark eyes which had always struck his master as the eyes of a philosopher old beyond his years. If anything had changed in these last few, restless years, it was only that the rebellious spark in his manner had grown tempered, his quick wit just as quick but its edge dulled by the patience cultured by wisdom.

Through it all he had only grown into a more trustworthy confidant, like a comfortable extension of Zoisite himself.

He clutched the message carefully in his hand, and lowered his voice. "Have you seen Mercury?"

Without thinking Bunbo pointed toward the rear deck. "I believe she is taking in the view."

Zoisite clapped the boy on the shoulder in gratitude, and made his way to the deck in question, where—true to Bunbo's word—Mercury stood with Jupiter in the open air, holding the hair out of her eyes as they talked animatedly, their words whisked away into the golden clouds of the planet Jupiter by the wind off the ship.

When they saw him approach, Princess Jupiter bid her friend to excuse her. "Zoisite," she said in passing, a mysterious smile on her lips as she did so.

"Jupiter. Won't you stay to hear my news?"

She glanced back at her friend. "I'll hear it one way or another, but don't let me get in your way."

He had the feeling that she misunderstood what he had come out here for, but he was thankful for the privacy nonetheless when he turned his gaze back to Mercury. She was dressed in a loose shirt and slacks like the time years ago when their romance had been new and uncertain, and they met in the grand library of the Moon Palace; and the wind made the fabric cling to her fey frame, teasing him with a glimpse of girlish curves so coy and yet so chaste, like Mercury herself.

"What is it you wished to tell me?" she said with a slight tilt of her head, still holding that lock of hair in place.

In her presence, suddenly it seemed insignificant, but he told her all the same of the message he had just received, that told of the sheer bulk of Venus's produce under the program he had first proposed to the council in the Moon Kingdom.

"Congratulations," she said, taking the leaf of paper into her own hands. "This is some victory."

"It is the Venusian farmers who deserve the credit for their efforts." Where this sudden selflessness came from, he did not question as he took the paper she handed back and tucked it securely into his jacket. He leaned back against the ship's railing. "This is more by far a victory for the common man than it is for me, or any of us who merely championed the plan."

"Yet everything has happened as you planned. What do you deserve for that?"

The temptation was too great. "This," he said simply and softly, and leaned toward her.

She did not turn her cheek to him, but instead raised her face in invitation, letting him place a kiss upon her smiling lips. They were cold from the Jovian air against his skin, but her breath escaping from between them to mingle with his was warm, oh so warm and tender. The contrast brought a shiver up from the base of his spine, and the cloudy sky that surrounded them without end in every direction glimpsed through his eyelashes made him feel as though he were flying, buoyant as a balloon upon the airwaves.

They parted only reluctantly, her azure hair now blowing without restraint across Mercury's face. "I have something for you," Zoisite confessed to her.

"Do you?"

He nodded and put his hand put to his mouth. Curling his fingers into a loose fist, he blew lightly into his palm while he watched Mercury over his knuckles. As she watched, he opened his hand and concentrated on drawing the cold up from within him. He could feel the biting coolness moving through his veins up to his palm, freezing the moisture his warm breath had left there. His energies he put to work changing the very molecules of water themselves, and very soon a flower of ice crystals materialized in the palm of his hand, starting as a bud in the very center and unfolding as more and more petals crystallized around it.

Mercury breathed in in wonder, her blue eyes widening. "You really have been practicing."

"For you, princess, this is just a small gesture. A symbol, if you will." Zoisite smiled down at his work, glancing at her from under his eyelashes. "Monks who follow the Way believe that a person can change the shape of a molecule of water with his thoughts alone—thoughts of anger, happiness, and most beautiful of all, love."

Mercury looked up at him. "And your feelings for me take on the shape of a lotus. Would you call that a symbol?"

"Certainly. Lovers talk of being reborn on the same lotus blossom in heaven."

"But you don't believe in karma."

Zoisite's cheeks colored faintly. "All I believe is that the present is tenuous enough not to waste time dwelling on the uncertainties of the future."

"In that case, I have something to give you as well." And so saying, Mercury cupped his hand in her own, pursed her lips, and gently blew across the ice blossom, as one might blow an imaginary kiss to a child. The skin of Zoisite's hand where hers touched him tingled, and before his eyes a thin mist rose from his own hand, sparkling in the air cupped within it. From the opening of the ice blossom tiny bubbles rose and were carried away by the wind into the atmosphere, sparkling like chips of diamond, until it had completely evaporated.

When it had, it was Zoisite's turn to capture Mercury's hands in his. "Come with me to Earth," he said. "I know I have entreated you a dozen times already, but you cannot make excuses forever."

Mercury's eyes turned away, and for a moment he thought for sure that she was going to refuse him again.

After only a little thought, however, before he could attempt to convince her further, a shy smile appeared on her lips, and she said quietly and simply, diplomatically, "I would like that very much."

II.Space Oddity

The metallic chiming of a million tiny bells bouncing against one another heralded the wedding party. Through the streets of Kathmandu they snaked to where the celebrations would be held. The fortunate couple was carried aloft on a palanquin bedecked with golden bursts of marigolds and a rainbow of other large, fragrant flowers. A chain of them draped around their shoulders encircled both the bride and the groom. The groom was beaming, and beneath her heavy jewelry the bride's pleasure was also apparent on her face, though both were perhaps too overwhelmed by the ceremony to join in on the singing and merrymaking that surrounded them.

It was the chiming of the bells and the flashes of brilliant color glimpsed from beneath his eyelashes that gently shook Zoisite out of his reverie. This was the life that he had missed while on his travels in the planetary kingdoms—the rich cacophony of the jubilee, the sea of colored flags that cared not a whiff for some higher, colder aesthetic sense, the mix of sounds and smells and age-old ritual that made the common people of Earth great—the life that he had wanted for so long to share with Mercury.

As she stood beside him now, her blue eyes wide with all the wonder usually reserved for a new theorem as she took in the world around her, he could hardly feel more fulfilled.

"It wasn't all that long ago that we were wedded like this to our true names," Nephrite said to him.

"The particulars were a little different, though," Zoisite said with a sleepy smile.

Jupiter linked arms with his comrade, pulling him toward the parade. "Let's join them and give the lucky couple our blessings. What do you say, Nephrite? Mercury, you'll come too, won't you?"

"Oh, I don't know . . ." her friend said, suddenly shy, but Nephrite was more obliging.

"I don't think they would terribly mind having us," he said. Then he turned to Zoisite. "Shall we catch up with you at the reception?"

"Perhaps," Zoisite said ambiguously, but the two were already fast leaving him and Mercury behind to join the throngs of revelers.

"Are you sure it's all right?" Mercury asked him when they were alone.

"Certainly." He smiled to himself, recalling an adolescence that felt like so long ago. "Nephrite is like a god to these people. Or, at very least, they see him as their most beloved son. He has ascended not only to the Capital but to the stars, and returned to them again. —Oh, but don't be surprised by it," he told Mercury quickly when she opened her mouth to speak. "They hear tales of the Moon Princess's grace, and the beauty and virtue of her guardians in the planetary kingdoms, and speak of you as goddesses yourselves."

Mercury lowered her eyes in modesty. "Are they really so superstitious?"

"On the contrary, I don't think spacemen are quite as democratic as they would like to believe." It was not necessarily to defend what he had once thought of as Earthmen's superstitions himself that he said so, though at the same time he would be lying if he said being in the midst of the life of an Earth city did not cultivate in him a strong sense of pride and patriotism. "I see how they look on their princesses with awe and adoration. I hear what is being said in the forums—"

"What is being said?"

Zoisite chuckled. "You're not very observant when it comes to yourself, are you, princess?" he chided her, but he could not be sure from her expression whether Mercury particularly appreciated the jest. "Don't you know they frown upon Nephrite and myself? And Kunzite and Jadeite as well. They worry we will corrupt the perfection and grace of the young ladies who represent the very hearts and souls of their planets."

"What a ridiculous accusation," Mercury said, with a small smile of her own. "They should trust us more than that."

"I have no doubt they do. The ones they don't trust are us, Endymion's officers. They would rather we stuck to women of our own world, while they applaud our Prince's wooing of the Princess Serenity."

Mercury laughed, brightly and honestly, though Zoisite could not help resenting it just a little bit. "You see," she said, "that is precisely why I don't listen to rumors about myself and my sisters. When we fill the kinds of positions for our people that you and I do, some things are bound to be thrown out of proportion and misunderstood."

"Misunderstood?" Zoisite wanted to ask, but before he could murmur more than a syllable, she added quickly, "But why do you mention it? Are you jealous, Zoisite?"

"As a matter of fact, I am."

Some remnant of a smile must have still been on his lips, because she didn't seem to take him seriously.

Or else, she simply did not want to. She said eagerly, as though she had not heard him, "Do you know what I would most like to see? No more temples, no more dances and ceremonies. I want to see an Earth market."

"A market?" he echoed.

She hummed in confirmation. "I've always dreamed of it, since I was a child learning about the kingdoms of Earth in my schooling."

His smile returned at that, as did his energy, and he offered his hand with a gusto when he said to her, "In that case, princess, shall we get ourselves lost?"

Lost they may have become, but doing so anonymously was not quite as simple. With his golden hair and hers as blue as the ocean, the two stood out among the locals who crowded the vendors. Among the dizzying aromas of fresh produce and lilies in full bloom and roasting meats, and the brilliant colors of bejeweled icons and strands of gold and silver and gossamer silks and brocades billowing in the air, they were greeted with wide smiles and reverent bows of the head from those they passed, and merchants eager to show the two their finest wares. At one stop it was the fabric that brought the green out of Mercury's eyes, or the heavy silver pendants that made her pale skin shine like moon-glow; at another, incense to soothe her mind and soul, or the sweetest juices to refresh her in the summer heat.

They reached a bustling crossroads, where a crowd had gathered to hear a woman strum her lute and sing in a pleasing, lilting voice:

"Poets often use many words  
To say a simple thing  
But it takes thought and time and rhyme  
To make a poem sing

"With music and words I'll be playing  
For you I have written a song   
To be sure that you know what I'm saying  
I'll translate as I go along"

When she went on to play a familiar refrain, Mercury gasped and gripped Zoisite's arm tighter. "Isn't that . . . Yes, that's the same song you sang when we were on Mars, the one that Jadeite wrote. But another verse has been added."

Zoisite's smile widened more and more as he listened to the musician's version. "Yes. And the new part sounds just like one of Jadeite's disclaimers."

"I wonder if he wrote it himself."

"I wonder if he knows just how popular his verse has become." Of course, if he were here, Zoisite knew, he would hide his own pride cleverly by giving Zoisite a hard time to no end about being responsible for it.

He snorted to himself and closed his eyes, letting the song drift around him. "It would not surprise me if that song were with us for a thousand years," he said to Mercury. "If we heard it sung in every nation, in every language, outliving us all."

He was silent for a moment, and then the words more or less slipped out: "I was serious, you know, when I said I was jealous."

Mercury smiled demurely. "What do you have to be jealous of—you who has everything?"

"_Do_ I have everything?"

She turned her head slightly at that and did not answer right away. "I wish you wouldn't say that," she finally said.

"Don't worry. No one will overhear us."

"I don't mean here," Mercury sighed. She kept her gaze locked on the musician as she said, "You know my feelings for you. I have never doubted you when you've said how much you love me. What reason have I given you to think that you don't have my heart as well?"

"Don't you see, Mercury? That isn't enough."

She turned to look at him then, and it pained Zoisite to see the uncertainty in her eyes, the feelings at war within her that he could not read. The ache in his chest only emboldened him to say, "When I said I would wait a lifetime if that was what it took to make you mine and mine alone, it was not entirely the truth. Waiting is the most difficult thing in the world. I grow weary of it, Mercury. I wish I could only show you how much it pains me when you are called back to your own duties alone, so that perhaps then you would understand—"

"Please, Zoisite. I wish we wouldn't discuss this."

"I want to make you my wife," he said below the murmur of the crowd, holding her arm so that she had no choice but to hear him out. "Coming here with you has made me realize that like I never thought possible before. I don't want to wait any longer."

However, rather than appreciating the intensity of his feelings, a glimmer of distrust flashed across her expression before it softened once again with her characteristic patience. "I am sorry," she said, "but what you're asking of me simply is not possible."

"Because of Serenity?"

Behind his question was a hard edge that he instantly regretted—not because he did not feel it genuinely, for he did, but because it only widened the gap between himself and Mercury.

"I cannot go against her plans for us," she said.

"But there are ways it can be done in secret. She will never have to know."

In response, Mercury averted her eyes again, and said nothing.

"Why?" he persisted. "What else would keep you from accepting my love?"

——

"Ahhh. . . ." Jupiter moaned as she tugged in an unladylike fashion at her night shift. As if the sweat glistening on her shoulders and at the hollow of her throat was not proof enough of her trouble, she groaned as she dropped melodramatically down onto the mattress beside Mercury, "Why must the nights on Earth be so _hot_ and _oppressive_? At least on Io one can always throw another fur on the bed to get warm; but one cannot, on the other hand, remove their own skin to keep cool. How do Earthmen sleep during the summer?"

Mercury laughed. "I never hear you complaining you can't get to sleep when we visit Venus."

"You can't be serious," Jupiter said, turning onto her stomach. As though they were even comparable, in other words.

"And here I thought you enjoyed living like a barbarian."

"Is that right? Wherever did you get . . . _that_ idea?" And so saying, Jupiter pushed herself to her hands and knees and grabbed Mercury by the shoulders, promptly lost her balance, and pulled them both backwards onto the silken sheets.

Mercury struggled feebly at first, murmuring through a grin, "How is this going to help you sleep any better?" before their laughter faded away and Jupiter leaned her chin on Mercury's shoulder.

"It reminds me of when we were girls," the taller of the two young women confessed. "Don't you remember how you and I used to huddle together through the long lunar nights, and map out the constellations above the Moon Palace?"

Yes, Mercury had to admit, she did remember. "We were being trained as Serenity's protectors then, and when we felt particularly overwhelmed or lonely, we would fall asleep in one another's arms and dream of our homeworlds far away."

Jupiter hummed, already sounding miles away. Even then, she had always craved a warm body beside her to help her fall asleep.

"But these days it seems you would prefer Master Nephrite's arms."

Where her sudden coldness had sprung from, Mercury herself did not know. Jupiter stiffened beside her, and raised her head as though certain she had heard her companion wrong.

"Excuse me, Mercury," she said, pushing a lock of wavy hair behind her ear, "but do I detect a note of resentment in your accusation?"

"Not resentment," the other said quickly, abashed. She could feel the blood rushing to her face as she amended, "I would not exactly call it envy, either. But you and Nephrite have become rather intimate, have you not?"

Jupiter narrowed her eyes. "The Princess's guardians are to remain celibate. You know that as well as I—"

"Yes, I know the rules. I was raised on the same dogma as you were. But would you deny to me, who is practically your sister, that all is not what it seems?"

She could not, and yet she could not incriminate herself either, so she remained silent, allowing Mercury to continue.

"You two seem so completely trusting of one another, and I feel the same when I see Kunzite and Venus together. There has even been a certain peace between Mars and Jadeite of late that I don't remember from before—"

"What are you trying to say?" Sensing her friend's distress—as Mercury said, they were sisters in all but blood—Jupiter sat up, serious and concerned. "Are things not well between you and Zoisite?"

"I would not say that—"

"You know, just because we have hit it off, no one is going to hold it against you if you don't like him—"

"But I do love him," Mercury said with a sudden conviction that surprised even herself, and led her to amend diplomatically, "At least I think I do. I know it. When we are apart, all I can think of is how dearly I would love to be back in his company, and all I can dream of, his gentle smile. When he takes my hand in his, and it's so cool in this heat—"

"That man is strange."

Mercury shook her head to herself at her companion's derisive tone of voice. "He makes me so happy. You have no idea, Jupiter, what it's like to find yourselves thinking of the same propulsion theory at the same time, how . . . exhilarating it can make you feel, just to know that your heart is understood so deeply. It's like we're in each other's minds sometimes."

"I take it back," Jupiter said, though she didn't seem to find it as amusing as she tried to make it sound: "You're both strange. You two deserve each other."

"Do we?" A distant smile pulled at Mercury's lips. "Is there something wrong with me?"

"Because you haven't given yourself to him?"

"Or is it him? Honestly, Jupiter, how can I know what he wants of me? Sometimes the not knowing . . . it's frightening."

Jupiter turned to her, brows knitted in concern.

"Oh." Mercury started. "It's nothing like that. It's the loneliness I sense in him that frightens me. Something in the way he stares too intensely, or how his hands hold mine like they never want to let go. . . . Oh, I know love will do that to us, but it's deeper than that—deeper than I can explain. And it makes me fear _for_ him. I'm afraid that if I let go, it would destroy him; but if I gave into his desperation. . . ."

She shook her head to herself in confusion. "I'm afraid it will only drag me down as well."

She was no stranger to loneliness herself; the most reserved of the Princess Serenity's companions, she had felt envy's sting more times than she could remember. But Zoisite was something else entirely. He needed her—or, at least, that was what he had decided. He had decided that she could save him. She sensed that much from him clearly.

Save him from what, however, she did not know.

And it was not as though she did not want to help him. She loved him. She had to or else it would not pain her so to see him in this agony he kept carefully hidden from her. But was it even realistic to think she alone could save him?

Jupiter's cheek resting sympathetically on her bare shoulder warmed her heart that had grown cold despite the sweltering night air, the fingers stroking the back of her hand calming the racing jumble of her thoughts. Mercury allowed herself to be pulled back down onto the mattress, where Jupiter held her close and caressed her like she had done when they were girls in the Moon Kingdom, and—though they had thought different at the time—things were far less complicated.

"I don't know what advice I can give you," Jupiter said against her hair. "Your heart knows itself better than I ever could; and even though sometimes we don't want to hear what it has to say, we are fools if we don't listen. But I can tell you this for certain. _We_ will always be right beside you, whenever or wherever you need us."

That was the greatest comfort Jupiter could offer her. But even after she had fallen asleep, Mercury found herself kept awake by her thoughts.

——

_I guess there is no need for me to recount what happened next. You were there. You heard the news at the same time as I did. I remember, because the look in your eyes at that moment still haunts me._

——

This time, when Queen Serenity was called to the Crystal Tower, it was with a sense of deep foreboding that she was not used to. Something had changed for the worse in the balance of the solar system, but she could not say what it was, only that she felt it in the Silver Imperium Crystal she kept close to her breast at all times. She had no doubt, if anyone could shed light on the source of this feeling it was the oracle of Pluto.

For too long she had relied on the princess and guardian of that distant, border world to comfort her with careful promises, to set her mind and her heart at ease. The Queen understood that now. However, there were things that even she was not privy to, whispers among the cosmos, and she knew she must learn to accept that.

Even though it was unacceptable.

As she flew through the halls of the Moon Palace, the long train of her robes billowing behind her, no one dared to stop her and ask the matter, or offer their assistance, though it was evident on the faces of all she passed that their own nebulous worries were only compounded by the urgency in her stride and the rare cloud over her bright eyes.

Only Luna managed to speak to her, as she ushered her Queen into the tower. "Your highness, Pluto is waiting—"

"I am well aware of that," Serenity told her coolly. She did not mean to be terse, but she knew Luna would understand that the gravity of the situation was such as to unsettle even the Moon Queen. "Please make sure I am not disturbed," she added in a gentler tone of voice, and Luna bowed her head low as she backed away.

Serenity could not open the line of transmission soon enough, once she had sealed herself within the tower.

Yet despite her fears, it surprised her nonetheless, when Pluto's holographic image appeared, that the signal from deep space was choppy with static. Such had never happened before.

When she spoke too, it was as though through a thick fog.

"_It took us by surprise, my Queen,_" she said, her breath quick with urgency. "_Slipped past our defenses without any trouble whatsoever. It all happened so fast we were unable to do anything—_"

"Please, Pluto," Serenity managed in a calm tone of voice. "I don't know what it is you're talking about. Please try to slow down and explain the situation to me."

The oracle gestured to someone out of sight with a dark, long-boned hand from beneath her cloak. "_Yes. Yes, I understand,_" she said, and Serenity could not tell if it was meant for her or those who were there with her on the very edge of the system.

"_Some hours ago we received a message from our posts on the frontier that an entity of indeterminate size and composition had penetrated the Kuiper Belt. The message was delayed. However, even if we had received it in time, I still doubt our efforts would have had any effect. The entity entered our system much too rapidly. We simply had no time in which to prepare an organized effort, and as a result it was able to slip by our gates. As I speak, the intruder is on its way to Neptune's orbit, and . . . it is not natural, my Queen. It is slowing. . . ._"

The oracle trailed off, and Serenity saw a moment later, as her shoulders shook just noticeably across the distance, that she was having difficulty keeping herself together. And as for Serenity, rarely had she heard the oracle so plain spoken; it could only mean Pluto felt a wrongness from this entity she mentioned that could not be explained even by the likes of her.

"Are you injured, Pluto?"

The other slowly shook her head. "_No, your majesty. No, but my energy was drained by the effort to keep the intruder out. Would that I were, at least I would have a proper excuse, but it was so fast and _so _powerful . . ._" She trailed off again, only to utter so quietly Serenity could barely hear her: "_I am sorry, my Queen. I failed you—_"

"Do not say such things. You did what you could."

"_But it was not enough. History shall judge that—_"

"Then History shall show that you did all that was in your power. Why didn't the frontier outposts send the message sooner? Did they not judge it was emergency enough? Why did they not use force? Is that not why they are equipped with such sophisticated weaponry?"

When the oracle hesitated in her reply, it was as Serenity dreaded. Her hopes were dashed by Pluto's revelation.

"_They were destroyed, your highness. Only a few were left unharmed outside of the intruder's path of entry. And it was only because of the computers that we received any warning at all._" The guns on the frontier stations were pointed outside of the system. What went without saying was that they did very little good indeed against a possible enemy inside the outer planets' orbits. "_Though we have suffered casualties, we were fortunate not to suffer the same fate here. However, we are defenseless in this position. We are standing by to evacuate at your word, my Queen._"

Serenity sighed as she weighed her options; but there was little else she could do.

"Give the order, then," she told Pluto. "I cannot afford to lose you. If the outer gates have been penetrated as you say, you can do much more good here by my side than where you are."

"_Thank you, your majesty._" Pluto bowed low.

"But come only if you can risk the flight. I fear what would become of this system if we lost you to this terrible thing as well."

"_We shall continue to diligently monitor its progress en route—as much as we are able._" Pluto hesitated then. She raised her face, and Serenity could barely make out the somber line of her lips beneath the hologram's veil.

"_I must tell you, my Queen, what I have said thus far fails to convey the magnitude of my misgivings about the intruder. There was something deeply malignant about it; dare I say, I believe it wished us evil. It blocked out the stars as it rolled past us, like a thunderhead blocking out the sunlight, for so far that we could see no end to it. It was darker than the blackest night, for even the darkest night, even the dark behind our closed eyelids, is possessing of some light and pattern. Only death could be as black as that. I tell you, my Queen, there was a while I thought I might never see the starlight again._"

The air inside the Crystal Tower was temperate, but Serenity felt a cold course through her body like she had never known before at hearing those words. It was all she could do to continue in a steady voice, but she knew she must, for Pluto's sake, and the sake of those who were with her.

"You must be going," she said. "I will expect your arrival in the Moon Palace before the new moon."

"_And what of the people of Neptune? They must be warned, your majesty—_"

"You have nothing to worry about. I shall contact them immediately with our next plans."

"_Your majesty,_" Pluto acknowledged with a hand on her breast, relief flooding her voice.

"Make haste, but be safe. Be sure to keep me abreast of your progress."

The hologram faded from the center of the floor, and Serenity was left alone in the Crystal Tower once again. For once, the ensuing silence, disturbed only by the faint hum of the computers deep beneath her feet, was cold and unwelcome.

She missed Pluto's comforting presence already, that presence that reassured her that the future's course was already plotted out. Now, it was for the first time completely uncertain, and she knew she could not depend on anyone else to tell her what to do next.

——

The silver spaceship waited in the courtyard to take them to the Moon Kingdom. The stone tiles in the Indian capital were not used to such weight, but there was little else that could be done. Queen Serenity had declared a state of emergency and the princesses of the planetary kingdoms were called back to space, immediately.

Those on Earth were not told much, but what they knew was that some unknown force had entered the solar system; and that until the nature of such force could be determined—and whether it was benign or dangerous—the princesses were desperately needed on their homeworlds, not only to give their people comfort, but to lessen the system's vulnerability. "Serenity will need all the support we can give her."

"I understand," Zoisite told Mercury. He did not touch her, even in reassurance, but his small smile and the promise that things would work out that it seemed to hold was warmer than his hands could ever be. "Nephrite and I will be rallying around Endymion as well in this time of uncertainty. I suspect that if the Capital was in turmoil during the nova, this latest news can only cause another panic. We must not allow that to happen."

"No," she agreed. "We will get to the bottom of this, whether it be by the efforts of our scientists or the Queen herself."

As Zoisite nodded, he glanced over the balcony to the courtyard below, where Nephrite was bidding Jupiter farewell. Even in a time such as this, he could not help feeling a pang of envy as he watched his comrade gently caress the side of his princess's face. At the same time, he wished bitterly that his old friend had more shame than that. One way or another, Zoisite did not want to hear what promises they whispered to one another.

"Stay safe," he said simply when he turned back.

"I will. And you as well."

"I'm sending Bunbo to accompany you as far as the Moon Kingdom. —Please. It's the least I can do," Zoisite added when she looked about to protest. "I only regret duty will not allow me to go in his stead."

When he said that, Mercury smiled warmly. That was the farewell she would leave him with, that he would treasure until they could see each other again. Bunbo, who had been waiting patiently by his master's side, did not flinch when Zoisite announced he would be leaving on the same ship. Perhaps it was true that, even though they had not discussed it, he had been prepared for just this. Or else it was simply a sign of his loyalty, that he should be prepared to leave at a moment's notice if Zoisite wished it.

"We should be boarding, Princess," Bunbo said, with one arm raised to graciously lead the way.

Mercury's gaze lingered on Zoisite a moment more, before she turned to him and said, "Yes. The sooner we leave. . . ."

She did not seem to find it necessary to finish that sentence, and just trailed off.

Zoisite watched them go until they disappeared from his line of sight. Like some great bird eager to take off, the ship tested its engines while the final passengers boarded, its crew yelling orders and replies back and forth at one another. Caught by some melancholy, or else uncertainty about the events that had caused this emergency to be called—at least the nova years ago he had been able to see and explain—Zoisite stayed and watched the ship depart from the balcony, not minding the wind that whipped across the courtyard in its wake and wrapped his cloak around his shoulders, his hair around his face.

"I came as soon as I could," Kunzite's voice came from behind him just as the roar of the engines was beginning to fade. He strode forward to look over the balcony the same as Zoisite, glancing down at the bustle in the courtyard as he said, "I see the princesses' ship has already departed."

"It could not leave soon enough for Serenity," Zoisite sighed, "yet I was loath that it had to leave at all."

Kunzite turned to look at him then.

"No matter," he said. "All that means is that we four will have our ship to ourselves, like old times."

At that Zoisite finally met his gaze, curiously.

"I've come to collect you," Kunzite elaborated.

"I thought you were with Venus in the Middle Kingdom."

"Venus is already at the Moon Palace with her Princess. And that was months ago that we were all together in the Capital. Have you forgotten?"

"Sorry," Zoisite murmured. "It seems as though, aside from that time we spent together on the slopes of Olympus, you and I have hardly spoken to one another in years, and even that was more incidental than anything."

"But it has not been for wont of trying. Which is why I've come for you myself."

"You needn't have taken the trouble." Zoisite crossed behind him. "I'll be returning to the Capital immediately—"

Kunzite shook his head after him. "No, you won't. You'll be coming to the Moon Kingdom with me."

Zoisite spun to stare at him, incredulous of what he had just heard. "But our place is beside Endymion. We are his generals, his guardians, duty-bound to serve him when he needs us most."

"And normally I would agree with you, that returning to the Middle Kingdom would be the best course of action. But right now Endymion is already on his way to visit with Queen Serenity. If duty calls us to stay beside him, then that is the place where we are wanted."

Something about that did not sound right. Zoisite held his head as he paced the balcony, as though trying to massage an answer from the mixed messages he had received. If something had occurred in the outer reaches of the system that was urgent enough to make the Queen call Endymion to her side for answers, it was a greater problem than they had been led to believe. And if such were the case, his conscience battled over his duty to his Prince versus his duty to his homeworld. "The ministers in the Middle Kingdom will not be pleased about this, to say the least," he said aloud to himself.

"And what of it?" The other grabbed his elbow and stopped his pacing. "I thought you didn't care what they thought?"

"When it was about us, Kunzite. When it was about the distrust of spacemen." His gaze flickered over Kunzite's, searching his silver eyes for some sign that his concerns were understood. "But like it or not, they represent the feelings of our people. _We_ represent the feelings of our people. And if we abandon them, how do you expect they will react?"

"I don't have a people—"

Zoisite sighed in frustration.

"I have always been treated like an extension of Endymion himself," Kunzite said.

"Then _you_ go to him, and let me reassure my kingdom."

"And you seem to have forgotten that your Prince _is_ your kingdom now."

Zoisite turned his head. He could not pinpoint it, but something in his comrade's words struck him as a defeat, a loss. It more or less slipped from his lips: "Then there is some truth to what they say. Serenity's power must be absolute, if she can summon the Prince of the entire Earth from his post with a word."

The bitterness in his tone surprised more than himself. Kunzite forced a laugh and spread his hands at his sides. "Where else would you have us turn for council? Like it or not, where the law is concerned, it is the Moon Palace that stands at the center of the system. Have you forgotten in these last four years that all our worlds are connected now? God knows you've spent them through the eyes of a girl from another planet—"

"How fitting, that you would be the one to make such an accusation."

Zoisite had hardly taken a step to leave the terrace, however, when a hand closed around his wrist. He spun, and was surprised to see his comrade's brow furrowed as though he had been the one insulted.

"Am I to apologize now for my feelings?" Kunzite hissed. "I would not have thought I would need to explain myself to you of all people. Don't tell me that you don't believe one can care deeply about two people at the same time. Did you think my feelings had at all changed?"

Zoisite's glare was hard despite the conviction in his comrade's voice. Did Kunzite really think he was so blind he could not see for himself what had happened? "What I believe?" he echoed. "What I believe is that when things become a little uncertain, it's easy for you to come running back to me, to a comrade. But when all of this is straightened out. . . . Where will you be?"

Zoisite snorted, and he shook his head to himself. "I know where you'll be. Which is why I must ask you to drop the subject, and let us focus on the matter at hand." He added in almost a whisper, "I've learned to put those futile hopes behind me . . . as I hope you can, too."

"Futile hopes—"

"Why are you bringing this up now? What's passed is passed. There are more pressing issues—"

Zoisite tried to pull his arm away politely, but he would have to work much harder if he wanted to free himself, and gave up out of his sense of decorum.

"Because," Kunzite finally confessed, his voice low, his gaze intense, "ever since the news came about Pluto you're all I've been able to think about. How much distance has grown between us since we first arrived together in the Moon Kingdom—"

"Stop it," Zoisite said.

"I don't know why now, but something about what happened made me feel I might never—"

"I said stop, didn't I? That's quite enough!" He jerked himself free. He didn't want to hear another word. Not about that. Not now of all times, of all places. "Queen Serenity has declared an emergency and you want to discuss frivolous things? Please be scientific, Kunzite, or at least civil!"

Terror had gripped Zoisite as he said those words, as if he were trying to hold back an elephant that might with a well-placed charge break through its restraints. He tried not to let it show in his tone of voice, but he could not be sure it went unnoticed. Kunzite said nothing, and gradually something changed in his gaze—a sort of surrender, if a defiant one.

"How soon can you be ready to leave for the Moon?" he said instead, any trace of the passion of moments ago vanished.

"Immediately. There is nothing I cannot take care of en route."

"Good," Kunzite said. "Then I'll see if I can't help Nephrite get everything in order."

As he turned to leave, a thought like he had forgotten something struck Zoisite from out of the blue, and the words more or less slipped out: "What about Beryl?"

"Beryl?"

"Will she be joining us in the Moon Palace?"

It had been some time since her name had last come up between them. Kunzite had to think, but only for a moment. "She is on tour of the outer planets with Governor Prism, I believe. I am sure she'll be well taken care of." But his explanation struck them both as rather vague.

Nor did he have to say what occurred to them both, that even in a time like this, but for their passing thoughts, her presence beside them and their Prince was hardly missed.

——

"_Be-e-ery-y-yl. . . ._"

Beryl started. She was sure she had just heard someone whispering her name. It could not be possible, yet at the same time she was sure her ears had not deceived her. The sound washed over her like a gust of wind rustling the branches of trees. But there were no trees here. Just the rivers shining like poured galena that snaked around the city, and the rosy gray ridges beyond, where crystalline towers of boiling water rose from geysers high into the Tritonian atmosphere, and sparkled against the starry sky. Looming large like a chandelier in the ceiling of the sky was the planet Neptune, who cast its vibrant, blue light over everything.

It was a scene of deep tranquility that could not be outmatched, even by the Moon itself. Here on the edge of the civilized worlds, orbiting the last of the solar system's giants, as Beryl looked out beyond the cloistered halls of this world's royal city, she was stricken by an overwhelming sense of awe and mystery—a feeling of balancing on a fine line, on the other side of which lay the great plain of unknowable eternity.

Perhaps it was out of that very eternity itself that that voice came, whispering her name again from all around her. Calling her, to some unidentified purpose. "_Beryl . . . Beryl. . . ._"

". . . They say that on some evenings you can hear the most beautiful strains of string music, floating on the air like shadows on the deep, still bottom of the ocean, but no one has ever seen the player."

"Ah, but it is most assuredly the playing of the princess of Neptune, if in fact the story is true. And you shall never see her if Serenity has any say in it. What the Moon Kingdom would be loath to admit is that the openness of the inner planets' infrastructure is a careful ploy to distract Earthmen from realizing just how closed the outer planets with all their secrets remain. And can you really blame them, given our own history of close-mindedness? It's a small miracle that we were even allowed on this tour, and you see how closely they watch us. . . ."

Prism trailed off and paused when he noticed Beryl hanging back. His companion stopped as well, and said, "What? Is something the matter?"

"Did you hear something just now?"

"Perhaps it was the princess's music," their companion said half in jest, but Prism's raised hand silenced him.

"No," Beryl said, as much to herself as the two men. "It sounded like a voice . . . like someone whispering. . . ."

"Unless it was the hiss of a geyser, you may have simply been imagining it. Something about the proximity of the planet has a way of warping one's aural perception." Prism flashed her a smile that effectively ended any further protests; and Beryl knew he was a rare sort of man among Earthmen, who was not given to dismissing a woman's concerns out of hand as some sort of hysteria; but his impatient manner she nonetheless could not help take personally, with a slight twinge of betrayal. "Come," he said, as though by way of apology. "If we dally here too long, we may garner suspicion."

Beryl very much doubted that, for all the security she had seen around the palace grounds, but she said, "I'll catch up with you two shortly. I want to take in this view just a few moments longer. How often is one privy to a sight such as this?"

To which Prism could not but agree, as already his companion was eager to regain his attention in some other line of conversation.

Beryl had every intention of keeping her word. However, when she took the first steps to follow them, some invisible force seemed to have seized her legs, if not her mind. Making her heart beat faster, like a seductive scent caught on the breeze. For reasons she did not understand herself, she had no desire to follow them; instead, the whispering voice would not let her be. Driven by curiosity as much as annoyance, and by an inexplicable sense of purpose, she retraced her steps instead to the wide and shallow staircase that led down from the hall to the rock face below.

Beryl's heart raced in her chest as she paused on the landing, ears and eyes open for any other signs of life, but she could no longer hear Prism's voice or his footsteps in the building. It appeared she was alone. There was no one there to ask her why she felt compelled to descend those steps, or, once she had reached the bottom, to follow the ancient, crumbling pathway she did around the side of the rock face that ran below this arm of the city. She would not have been able to explain it herself if stopped. The blue orb of Neptune hanging high in the sky, and the hush pervading everything that almost seemed to emanate from the planet itself, or from the water roiling deep below the moon's crust, had put her in a kind of trance; she did not have the will power, nor the desire, to go back.

She came to a strange structure that did not match the architecture of the city's buildings. Though it was carved out of the rock, it was rather as though the rock had built itself up over the structure over the centuries, like coral over a sunken ship. Its entrance gaped like the foreboding mouth of an ancient creature, its teeth the tapered mica columns of a Minoan palace.

Surprised to see it emerge from out of the hillside, Beryl glanced back at the way she had come. She could not have come far, but already she felt a great distance from the castle. She could not see even the highest towers over the weathered shelves of strata rising sideways like clouds out of the rock face. And Neptune seemed closer than ever before, gazing down upon her like an ever-watchful eye. Pressing down upon her.

"_Come, Beryl. . . ._" the voice rose again like an exhalation from out of the man-made cavern, and Beryl obeyed it without fear.

Brushing the waves of hair out of her face, and picking up the long skirts of her gown, she boldly climbed the steps to the structure. The heels of her slippers clicked on the cracked onyx floor that had once been polished to an immaculate, mirror-like surface. The sound ricocheted off the walls, piercing the silence that had descended suddenly upon her.

Still the disembodied voice called her: "_Beryl. . . ._"

"Who are you?" Beryl asked aloud, her voice echoing in the ancient chamber.

She was not sure if she expected an answer, until she got one.

"_I am what I am,_" it came, resounding through the structure. "_I am the Law of this universe. Since the dawn of time have I traveled alone through time and space to arrive at this system full of life. . . . Long have I searched the void for the one who would hear my voice, for you, Beryl. . . ._"

For the first time, Beryl felt fear. But she did not flee. "How do you know my name?"

"_I know all that is in the hearts of all men. Their true names. Their true desires. Their true natures. But I have chosen you among all of them, Beryl. You alone have answered my call. I have peered into your soul, and you alone have what I seek._"

"What is it you seek?"

The word rumbled through her like a slow quake: "_Power._"

Beryl shook her head. Perhaps the voice was all an illusion after all. "I have no power," she said, more to herself than anything. "I am nothing here but a visitor, and where I come from, a symbol of not much of anything. I am sorry, for you've come all this way, but you called to the wrong person."

The voice seemed amused at her words, and her conversationalist manner.

"_On the contrary, I find it most fitting that the one I have sought should be a woman of the planet they call Earth. Perhaps you are not powerful,_" it conceded, "_perhaps not now, but I could make you so. I sense the yearning in you, the outrage that has been growing deep inside of you at the injustice of your existence. You were born for greater things than this. You were born to be recognized! to be feared and worshiped with awe like the first goddess among man. Reverend mother of creation as verdant as your namesake, beautiful as the black, fertile soil, cruel as the unending night of death. Isis. Gaia. Eve. . . . Are these not the names the people of your world have used to describe it? What a vise this world of men has placed you in: companion to a prince who cannot love you, to an officer who cannot wed you. How they have neutered you—_"

"How do you know these things?" Beryl said, looking about her in awe. She had been so careful about keeping her feelings for Endymion—and her trysts with Prism—secret, to say nothing of the other things her conscious mind knew nothing of.

"_As I said,_" the voice reminded her, as though reading her mind: "_I see all that is in men's hearts. And all the evil that is done against them. There is no secret that remains hidden from my all-seeing consciousness. There is no unborn possibility that remains unlamented within me. You, dear girl, could have been a queen of Earth—_"

"No." Beryl shook her head at herself. "Now I know this is naught but a delusion. A queen of Earth? Never in a million years. What girl has not dreamed of it, and I who grew up closer to my Prince than any other, but . . . No, it was never in my destiny to rise to that—"

"_Never in a million years?_" the voice repeated, in mockery and amusement. "_Perchance that you would say that. Destiny? What a joke. Nothing is written but what _I _write. As I said: _I _am the Law here. If I desire this system to be mine, it is mine. If I desire it now, it is now, not eons away._"

"What you speak is nonsense," Beryl snorted. "Besides, this system already has a queen."

She quickly silenced herself, but the words were already spoken; and even so she could not silence what was in her heart, as the voice had said. "_Of course,_" it murmured in something that was not quite a hiss nor a chuckle. "_Queen Serenity rules this system, does she not? hidden away within her Crystal Tower where she exercises her absolute power over the other worlds with her . . . Imperium Silver Crystal. . . ._"

The voice paused to savor these words and all that they implied. Power was what it said it had been looking for, and those words resonated with it. Lust and envy for that power resonated within the voice, within Beryl's mind, and it at once thrilled and terrified. The thing that had spoken surely must have taken that knowledge from her own thoughts, meaning she had betrayed the Moon Queen, however unwittingly. Yet for some reason it was not that knowledge that frightened Beryl so, so much as not knowing what the entity would do with that information. To ordinary men, these were just facts; but what a being such as this one that could infiltrate one's own thoughts could do was another matter. A question mark as large as the solar system itself.

She had been brought up to believe nothing was more powerful than the Imperium Silver Crystal, but now she doubted the certainty of that assertion. Nothing known to man was greater than that Crystal; and this entity that spoke to her now was most assuredly not known by anyone else.

A great weight lay on her shoulders with that revelation. If she alone knew of this entity, she alone was in a position to stop it from doing potential harm to the balance imposed by the Moon Queen.

But what could someone like herself do?

"_What can a powerless girl like you do?_" the voice kept on. "_You wish to stop me? You do not even know what I am capable of doing._"

"Nothing," Beryl said. "No one can topple Queen Serenity's authority."

"_Then no one I am, for I _will _make this system mine, and all its untapped energy shall be released for all who would embrace me. Am I not great? Am I not fair?_"

Beryl knit her brows. Was the entity talking about what she thought? Freedom from a Moon-centric system? But wasn't that just a product of her own interpretation?

"_You are not mistaken in your assumptions. I have come to this system to liberate a great power, and in doing so, to liberate the people of its worlds. Are you surprised, Beryl? Has Serenity placed you under such a heavy yoke that you cannot see beyond your feet, see that you and all this system has been enslaved? Have you not heard the arguments in the universities of Saturn? The educated circles of your own Earth? I hear their whispers even now. Have they not all raised the same doubts about Serenity's intentions?_"

"Man was meant to be free," Beryl agreed, albeit reluctantly, lowering her eyes. "It is his birthright. The spacemen loyal to Serenity swear themselves to the god of democracy, but they live as kings while the women and children of Earth starve and succumb to disease."

"_Yes. . . . Precisely right,_" the voice encouraged her. "_They believe men of all worlds are equal, so long as they are spacemen. No one is more responsible for this injustice than Serenity herself. She has made sure that all the power in the universe rests in the hands of one arbiter: the Moon Queen. But who has said that she is a worthy arbiter, but she herself? Look up, Beryl, and see the truth!_"

Beryl did look up, and her eyes flew open in surprise. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, hovering in the still realm of death for one eternal second before she remembered to breathe. Before her the black onyx depths of the cavern had been transformed, and instead of her own reflection stardust danced on the black surface—within the black surface. Stars flew by and opened up in great blossoms of fire around her, leaving her unharmed; tendrils of the galaxy stretched out impossibly across the dark of the cavern. It brought Beryl to her knees. "How can this be happening?" she whispered to herself. Was this an hallucination?

"_I have power too,_" said the voice, "_a great power which I will give you if you would swear yourself to me. Help me, and I will restore you to the position you rightly deserve, that you were born to inherit. I will make you a queen, a queen of all worlds—of all cosmos. This system and endless others, all of them I will lay at your feet, at your command, and no one shall oppose you. Those who try will be destroyed. Not even their bones will remain to give testimony to their existence._"

The words washed over Beryl like the visions that swarmed before her. "It is all too great to imagine," she said to herself. "But what you say cannot happen. It simply cannot come to be." There was nothing that should have been able to make that promise, let alone to one like she.

Not that she believed herself undeserving, of course. Quite the opposite. She could feel a thrill course through her body, a tingling, tense sensation that started at the tips of her fingers and rushed hot through her limbs into her very core. A feeling that, if she only stretched out a finger, she could make a sun burst into existence, or just as soon wink out. She knew she could become drunk on this feeling—a feeling of righteous supremacy, like the universe itself was granting her its blessings to carry out its divine will in her person—but was that so wrong? How she would love to have that kind of strength, that kind of power, the very elements at her beck and call.

Only rational thought, distanced from those emotions that urged her to seize this opportunity, resisted the skewed logic of it.

"_Stop thinking like a slave!_" the voice urged her. "_You bow to no one!_"

Which was the very start that Beryl needed to shake her out of her indecision; and with that new clarity, she began to see the pattern behind the field of stars—a pattern that, like the entrance of the man-made cavern, had eerily recognizable features: nebulous eyes, and a wide, grinning mouth full of cosmic teeth—and it disgusted her.

"There is nothing you can offer me that I need," Beryl told that boundary-less face. "As I said, you have come to the wrong person. I am not this queen you speak of!" Yes, you are, a voice inside her insisted, but she stubbornly ignored its seductive logic. "I am happy as I am."

"_Are you?_"

Beryl was stopped by that simple question. A familiar face rose to the fore of her mind, and a name to her tongue, that instilled in her such longing even after all these years of separation that her body trembled just to think it:

Endymion.

Her Prince.

This entity who knew her heart and her mind surely also knew how this love she struggled to hide so silently within her engulfed her like licking flames.

If a thing could give her the universe on a platter, could it not also give her the heart of one man?

But—this was folly. Was one man, any man, really worth so much? To her surprise, Beryl found she did not have a ready answer. Only the entity behind the voice could have known which way she would answer, for it did not hesitate to seize upon this opportunity for certain victory.

——

Once again the operators in the communications tower of the Tritonian royal city tried to get through a message to the Moon Kingdom, with the same results: no luck. They threw up their hands at Governor Prism, who presently leaned over the back of one chair himself. "Are you sure you've tried every channel?" he said for what felt like the dozenth time. "How can none of them be receiving a signal?"

"I don't know what to tell you, Governor," said one of the technicians. "We've tried them all, but some sort of interference seems to be blocking the signal."

"Interference?" One of the more scholarly-leaning of the party of Earthmen stepped forward to join him when he heard that. "Activity on the sun?"

"No, sir. Solar activity is low this time of year. But it does seem electromagnetic."

"The tides couldn't be causing it, then?"

The moon's proximity to Neptune made for an unusual tidal pull that presented itself on this world with fantastical waterworks twice a lunar day. But the operator's shake of the head seemed to indicate confidence that was not the problem.

"It should be the wrong time of day for that, but if that is the case then we will just have to wait until it passes."

More waiting, was it? Prism considered himself a man of great patience and understanding, but the smoothness of all operations in Serenity's kingdom had spoiled him these last couple of decades. "Well, keep trying," he told the operators with a final pat on the back of the chair. "I would like to have my ship in the air within the hour."

"Yes, sir," said the operator, as Prism stepped away to speak to his companion.

"One would think Serenity would do something about the technology of these outer worlds," he muttered to the other. "For the system's first line of defense, they are terribly outdated, to be put out of commission by natural processes."

"Perhaps they are in need of a bit of Earthman ingenuity," the other suggested, recalling their homeworld's latest technological triumphs, and even Prism had to agree it could not hurt.

"Perhaps." He stopped his companion with a hand on his arm. "Have you seen Beryl, my friend? With any luck we can still get off the ground and be on our way back to Oberon before long, and I have not seen her in hours."

"She's probably returned to her quarters. I will inform her of the plans."

Prism patted the man on the shoulder in gratitude, but his satisfaction was short-lived.

A commotion by the windows made both men turn to see what was the matter. First the operators closest, then other visitors and Neptunians alike, with anxious murmurs, turned their gazes to the plains below. One did not have to actually see the floor of the valley to grasp what the excitement was about. If the loud hisses that reached them even in the palace were not enough, the great plumes of boiling water that shot toward the heavens certainly were. They rose higher than the natives around them appeared to have ever witnessed, judging by their open mouths and frenzied gazes. Watchers' murmurs of awe grew in volume and fear as the ground beneath them began to shake, first in barely perceptible tremors, then in a steady rumbling that showed none of the signs of moving on that an ordinary earthquake would.

"What is it now?" Prism spoke to his companion, but could not turn his eyes away from the sight. "Is this too just an effect of the tides?"

The other could not answer.

There were shouts at the window. The valley floor groaned and hissed as the river winding below them was turned to pillars of steam that obscured the stars. Many, fearing a cascade of boiling water, shied away from the windows; but Prism, with the careless boldness of an Earthman, rushed toward them to take in the cataclysmic sight for himself. The pressure that was mounting all of a sudden beneath the earth was so great it was visible, and even the vents that had opened sporadically in the crust to let some of it off did not appear sufficient.

A shadow descended over the valley, and Prism looked up. Past the rising fountains of water—normally a beautiful and calming sight, now something to instill dread—a black haze was rolling like storm clouds over the sky, slowly snuffing out even Neptune's brilliance. Not since he was a child had Prism been seized by such a terror as he was then, all the worse because it was a terror whose cause he could not even know.

"Master Trapezoid," he called once again to his friend, an uncharacteristic panic in his tone, "where is Beryl?"

"Does this sight not move you, Governor?"

Prism started, for it was not Trapezoid who had spoken, but a woman's voice. And one that was at once familiar to him and entirely alien—a husky and flirtatious yet at the same time sinister voice, beautiful and unsettling in its intensity. He glanced in the direction from which it had come, and swore his eyes were deceiving him.

The woman standing there was tall and voluptuous, her hourglass curves and long legs sheathed in a long, dark-violet gown that trailed on the silver floor. Large, dark eyes held his boldly, and looked upon him with an air of superiority that for some inexplicable reason—coming from this mysterious person—felt utterly deserved. Long, thick tresses fell upon her shoulders like waves, but unlike those he had combed through his fingers so many times before, they were fiery red.

Still, there remained enough similarity for him to know his eyes had not deceived him. A loud rumble made the room's inhabitants jump and forced the name on his lips from him, in disbelief: "Beryl?"

The woman did not answer him aloud. But her smile—the cruel upturn of her full lips—was answer enough before the city was plunged into darkness.

——

_After that, an immense stretch of transformed and empty land appeared like a patch of flayed flesh on Triton's equator where its capital had once sat. Whatever happened there to cause it, we never knew, as there was no one who survived to explain. _

_At least, this was what we assumed; this was what the evidence suggested. The only other communication to come from Neptune was to inform us that the planet's guardian was fleeing to Uranus's orbit to solidify a front there. In short, that she had given up hope for the salvage of her own world. _

_But from Triton, we never heard another word. We had no reason to believe there was anyone left. _

_That was the moment it started. No one could blame Serenity for what followed, however. If there were any precedent for this sort of thing, it had long ago passed out of human consciousness._

III.War

Even without sound, the video images sent from the satellite cities of Uranus were terrible. Once magnificent buildings and life-sustaining utilities burned and crumbled, and the bloody injured huddled together in the crowded halls of the palaces and universities. There were no images of the dead, or of the mysterious enemy, but a picture captured from a balcony told their progress; even across the great distances of space and time, their army swelled like a living thing through those streets that had once stood for all the supremacy of spacemen's civilization.

It was a scene that was similar to the scattered territories on the outskirts of the Middle Kingdom's jurisdiction on Earth. On an outer world, however, it was completely alien and incongruous. Even the Earthmen gathered in Serenity's court felt this like a great lead weight settling in their stomachs.

"These are the images sent us from our friends on Oberon," Serenity said, the gravity of the situation making her voice ring frostily across the crystalline chamber. Even the way she spoke the word "friends" had a new weight to it, as though more than ever it was a rare jewel to guard jealously. "From Titania, and Umbriel as well. The conflict has even reached as far inward as Titan, but so far our forces there have managed to keep it contained. However, the struggle in Uranus's orbit is much more difficult. Many lives have already been lost and our forces are stretched thin across the moons."

She hesitated to say what she said next. Though she did not look at Endymion and his four officers, all gathered there knew it was a reluctance to say it in front of them.

"I fear we will have to pull out of the Uranus system."

Thoth was quick with a rebuttal. "My Queen, to do so would be to admit defeat to these rebels. They accuse us of abandoning the outer planets in favor of Earth and its sons, essentially of betraying our long ties with them—"

"You know as well as I do that is a boldface lie."

"Yes, I do; but if we retreat to Saturn, we will only be solidifying their cause. We will have left Uranus in our enemy's hands, when they must be quashed!"

"And if Titan falls because we have spent too much energy on a lost cause?" Kunzite spoke up levelly, though much to the other's displeasure. "What will they say of her majesty then? There are half a million innocent people on that world, many of them citizens of Earth—"

"Of course," Thoth snorted, "you would be concerned _then_. You consider the Queen's struggle to be your struggle as well only as long as there are people from your own world in harm's way."

"Please," Venus said with a pained expression from her place by her Princess, and Mercury added for her, "Must we really continue this bigotry in light of the suffering of our brethren in the outer systems?"

"We are representatives of Earth," Endymion spoke up over all of them. "We are only doing our duty when we look out for the well-being of our compatriots abroad." He turned to the Queen, head lowered in supplication. "May I remind her majesty's advisors that there are Earth-born soldiers among her forces. My generals and I as well would pledge our help if her majesty would have it. We can fight. We can supply existing troops with our planet's resources. We would only be too glad to do our part to put this rebellion to rest once and for all."

"Endymion—" the Princess Serenity spoke without thinking, reaching out to him in spirit, but she quickly caught herself.

He glanced up at that, and something passed briefly and silently between the two young lovers. "At least let us oversee the evacuation of our own people from the outer planets," he tried in a softer voice.

The Queen's gaze softened, though her words showed him no sympathy. "I have already given orders for non-citizens to evacuate."

"But, your highness," said Zoisite, "there are not enough ships!"

Thoth opened his mouth, but a gesture from Serenity kept him still, and Kunzite nodded in agreement.

"Nor are the existing ships large enough to handle the demand. We have all heard the stories of comrades forced to draw lots between them for available seats—young families torn apart because Earthmen's native wives and young children are not allowed to flee to safety with them. This is not justice, your highness. Something more must be done."

"And it can," Zoisite said again. He stepped forward boldly, one hand over his heart as he spoke with conviction. "We have the resources on Earth to build hundreds of space-ready ships—passenger ships and warships, whatever her majesty desires. We can match the production of the Mercurial factories and those of the Asteroid Belt." He looked at Mercury for support as he said so, and found it in her gaze even if she remained silent, and it empowered him. "If I put the proposal before my people back on Earth, I have no doubts about the manpower we will be able to achieve—"

"My kingdom will take on this project as well," Nephrite said, "with her majesty's blessing."

Zoisite did not think twice about this addition to his comrade's pledge, because none of the Earth delegation thought that the Queen could refuse. Nonetheless:

"I appreciate the lengths you all would be willing to go to for our cause," she said, "but I am afraid I must refuse. Embroiling the Prince of Earth and his generals directly in a spacemen's war is a step the Moon Kingdom is not prepared to take."

"But, my Queen—" Now it was Jadeite's turn to speak up, and Serenity visibly, however slightly, winced when he addressed her so possessively. "Neptune and Pluto are already lost—"

"Thank you, Master Jadeite, but I do not need to be reminded of my failures—"

"How many more kingdoms must fall, your majesty, before you accept the help we are so openly offering you?"

"We have one factor on our side now that we did not at Neptune and Pluto," said the Queen, but it was not really an answer. "We have time. We were prepared. We have a presence on Titan that we did not have in those other circumstances. If Uranus must be sacrificed for a chance of stopping the rebellion in its tracks, than it is a regrettable necessity."

"And you would let Uranus become a barren system once again?" Artemis said from behind the throne's dais. "Let the cold of space reclaim it?"

"My Queen," said Thoth, "give up on Uranus and the rebels will have been justified."

"Don't," Kunzite shot back, "and you'll lose two planets in one stroke."

Endymion spoke up quickly lest the debate become a personal shouting match between the other two. "Queen Serenity," he said, "is there nothing I can do to convince you to accept Earth's help? My officers and I are desperate to help in any way we can. Would you let all we could offer you go to waste on philosophical pretenses?"

"Yes," said the Queen. "What else can we do when we are battling a philosophical enemy?"

The Princess Serenity looked up at her, uncertainty etched clearly in her face. "Mother. . . . Are you certain that's really for the best?"

A meaningful glance passed between them that Thoth alone was observant enough to pick up on. He said quickly, and quietly close to her ear though the others could still hear his words echo in the chamber: "Your highness, allow me to escort the Prince and his officers from the room so that you might have an opportunity to consider every concern that has been raised here in privacy."

"Thank you." She waved at him slightly in gratitude. Then, to the others: "Prince Endymion, though I am refusing your offer, I do greatly appreciate the intent behind it. I hope you can respect my decision as well, and for the meantime steer your concerns clear of the conflict on Uranus and Saturn. That is not merely a request, Prince; it is an order, which I believe in time you will find is not only in the best interest of our two kingdoms but that of your compatriots in the outer planets as well, and all the citizens of those worlds. If you have ever had faith in our Moon Kingdom, have faith that we will not allow our enemies to succeed in disrupting the balance we have held this system in for thousands of years."

Thoth stepped down to lead the delegation away; but before he could, those beside the Moon Queen could plainly see the displeasure on Jadeite's face, the disappointment on Kunzite and Nephrite's, and hear Zoisite mutter to his Prince, "But she's making the wrong decision—"

Endymion cut him off with a glance.

"Thank you, your majesty," he said with a bow to the Queen, though even that was not without quite a deal of regret. "Please excuse us."

The Queen nodded her head. Though it was clear she held no hard feelings for the young man from Earth, even she was aware how fragile his feelings must have been at such a time, how difficult it was to humble himself before her when she continued to refuse him. Endymion and the Princess Serenity exchanged a glance whose meaning only they knew before the former reluctantly turned and allowed himself to be led out of the throne room by the Queen's advisor.

Something similar passed between Zoisite and Mercury, as he glanced over his shoulder at her on his way out, and the next second it was gone. Should she have said more in his defense, she wondered, even if it was her Queen's logic with which she solidly concurred? Surely there was no place for personal attachments in the decision-making process, but at the same time she knew just how useful the extra ships Zoisite spoke of could prove to be.

"Mother." The Princess Serenity turned to the Moon Queen when the Earthmen had left the room. "Why don't you allow Earth to assist us in this struggle. They could provide us so many resources. And they _want_ to do it. Surely we need all the help we can get."

"And if we admit to that, Princess," said Mercury, "what message do you suppose it will send to our allies in the outer planets, to say nothing of our enemies? If her highness asked the Earth for help, it would mean even her reach is limited, even the Silver Imperium Crystal is not all-powerful. But more than that," she added with a slight sigh, "to ask for Earth's help would be to indebt ourselves to them."

When the Queen did not respond, Serenity glanced between her mother and Mercury. She could not ignore the slight furrow on the former's silver brow, or the solemnity of her gaze that seemed focused on some distant dilemma. "Is that true?"

"The Lady Mercury speaks rightly," Artemis answered for his Queen. Even Venus's downward gaze held little sympathy for the Moon Princess's entreaty. "At this time we cannot afford any action that might be misconstrued as outward displays of favoritism to the Earthmen. That is exactly what the enemy is accusing the Moon Kingdom of doing. We would only be adding fuel to their fire."

"But . . ." Serenity looked wildly between her companions. Surely the conflicted expression on Mercury's face meant that young woman felt the same way she did, or at least understood her. "I know Endymion," she told her mother. "He would never offer to help the Moon only with the promise of receiving something in return. If the solar system is supposed to be as united as you say, then why continue to exclude him when he can save us?"

At last the Queen spoke, her gaze still trained on the doors leading out of the chamber, as if to follow the Earthmen who had been before them so recently. She told her daughter, in such a way that invited no further rebuttals, "I never said I doubted Endymion's sincerity."

Then did that mean there was someone else she distrusted? she left the others to wonder. Artemis no doubt was thinking of the ministers he had confronted in the Middle Kingdom capital, who made no efforts to hide their mistrust of spacemen.

Mercury for her part could not help wondering if the Queen was referring to Zoisite and his comrades, whose offense at being rejected she could at least rationalize. They had both heard the strength of Zoisite's conviction when he told Endymion this was the wrong decision. On the other hand, Mercury had to ask herself, was she merely projecting her own misgivings of late onto the Queen's words? After all, Serenity's only somewhat weary brow continued to give nothing away.

"Our greatest concern right now is for the safety of the outer kingdoms," the Queen continued, rising from her chair. "I will not allow fear and lies to turn this matter into a dispute of one world's place over another. These rebellions must be quashed while they remain isolated, and while it remains well understood: the Moon Kingdom does this for the good of the whole, and not any one world."

She added bitterly, "If only we had been given the same opportunity with Neptune and Pluto."

——

Serenity's orders be damned.

That phrase repeated in Zoisite's mind like a mantra in the months since war first sprouted in the satellite colonies of the outer planets. The progress of the Queen's forces was well reported in the city centers on Earth, though it seemed that even of those who heard it, most continued to believe that, as far as they were concerned, they had more important things to worry themselves with than civil disputes on distant worlds millions of miles away, and to some extent this was true. But anyone who knew the full gravity of the situation was well aware: it was only a matter of time before these disputes made it to the mining worlds; and if the farming worlds also fractured, the peasant class would once again feel the pressure here on Earth.

Zoisite for one was determined not to let that happen. Though the Queen had decided she did not need the help of Earthmen or their technology, doubtless there would come a time when either she would, or Earth would be forced to defend herself. Already her people were spread across the system, her scholars in the cities of Jovian and Saturnian moons, Earthmen by birth if vagrants in spirit. What was Serenity's plan for them?

It was concerns such as those that brought him and Nephrite to the city of Bamiyan in this arid, rocky land of steppes and nomads on the very edge of the Western Tributary Kingdom. Serenity could not limit their domestic airships, nor could she limit their own supplies of iron, or their trade routes or workforce, or ingenuity. If she would not give them space-ready battleships to command, then Zoisite had no problem making them himself.

Nor had he any problem finding the manpower to complete his project. Though the name of his father the sultan might have been forgotten, or never been known in these eastern parts, his and Nephrite's fame as just regional emperors brought men eager for such glorifying work as the task commanded from as far as the South China Sea. Under the watchful faces of giant buddhas, already more than seven centuries old, staring out from the cliffs that rose up around the city—just off the highways old foot caravans had once carved out, now frequented by airships going to and from the Capital in the east—they constructed their dry docks; and the ancient crossroads was revived in no time into a bustling city centered around the new industry.

"You spend almost all your time here now," Kunzite remarked to him on one of his visits. He himself was always on the move these days, between the Capital and the Moon Palace, or between the Moon and some other anxious world. "You don't feel like you're neglecting your duties?"

"Endymion does not need me," Zoisite told him back, in between clarifying orders to technicians charged with putting together a ship's engines. "If he did he would send the word here, and I would not hesitate to heed it. But as it is he has you by his side at all times. I can serve him much better where I am now."

"I'm talking about your kingdom."

That had given Zoisite pause. It had been so long since Kunzite had said those two words—your kingdom—to him, that he was for a moment taken aback, sure his comrade was trying to call him a hypocrite or some such thing. He quickly shook his head. "The Southern Kingdom has been stable for years. The work I do here is what matters for the security of our world. Besides, there are so many here from Siam and Burma, Araby and the like it usually feels like I am home."

He had smiled then, but sometimes he did wonder if he was not stretching his authority thin. Even his word could only stretch so far, and he could not make himself be in two places at once.

Though sometimes he did wish the laws of physics allowed that. Such as now, for example.

"The parcel came from your camp in Bamiyan," Bunbo informed him dutifully from a hundred thousand miles away. One would have to know him to know his concern, his voice and expression gave no trace of it away. "It had your stamp. If I hadn't felt something was wrong when I did, the princess might have eaten some of it, and . . ."

Like he did when he was a child, he trailed off at the unpleasant bit. If she had eaten one of the confections Zoisite was supposed to have sent her, was what he meant to say, the Princess Mercury might now be dead, poisoned by an impostor.

"Thank you, Bunbo," Zoisite said solemnly. "Once again I am indebted to you."

"I didn't do much. It was chance that prevented it—a feeling that was based on no evidence—"

"And yet you saved her life. I should say you did more than enough. How can I ever express my gratitude to you, Bunbo? How many times have you saved my life, and now hers?" It was hard for Zoisite to say those words, at once because they had narrowly dodged a bullet, but also because he had been partly, if unwittingly, to blame for it in the first place. "I know you have been away from Earth for a long time, but in light of this scare, I must ask you to stay in the Moon Palace just a little while longer. For Mercury's sake as well as mine."

"But . . ." Bunbo let out his breath. "Yes, sir. But what I am trying to say is, the nature of the parcel. . . . Sir, for all we were to know it really did come from you. How, in the future—"

"It will not happen again," Zoisite assured him. "I will make sure of that."

"How?"

He hated to admit it, but knowing Bunbo would keep his confidence, "I know who sent it."

The young man's brows knitted on the other end of the line, but even then his master could not completely read his meaning.

"I will take care of this," he repeated. "You can be sure of it." The offender had not harmed him, but the strike had come close enough to his heart to give him quite a bit of pause.

Bunbo lowered his voice, stirring Zoisite from his thoughts. "Do you want to speak to her yourself?"

Over his apprentice's shoulder Zoisite caught a glimpse of Mercury, and she looked as physically shaken by the close call as he felt. The dances that made their hearts swell and the careless professions of love when their romance was new and untroubled by a darker world—suddenly he felt how long ago those times truly were, how much had been changed in just a few short years by a still unknown catalyst dropped into the farthest reaches of the solar system. How much _they_ had been changed by it. He yearned to reach out to her, but knowing he could not physically touch her, and shamed by his unwilling complicity into a lack of any proper words, he told Bunbo no, he was too unsettled to speak, and excused himself.

He stalked the grounds of his office in Bamiyan on a mission. The memory of a face had struck him during his conversation with Bunbo. At first a vague, familiar glimpse, now it had solidified clearly in his mind. A round, white face and a narrow pair of eyes that had no business in this industrial town in the middle of the desert.

Seeing his displeasure, some of his personal attendants and secretaries came rushing forward, eager to help.

He picked the offender out immediately. "How could I have been so blind?" he snorted to himself.

"Sir?" said one of the secretaries.

Zoisite yanked the person standing next to the man forward by the collar and pulled back that person's cap. Long, straight black hair fell freed from underneath it. The Japanese woman who stared back at him from above her Middle Kingdom suit did not flinch at his violence but simply met his gaze calmly, with obedience and patience.

"Yasha," he hissed, and now he understood why her name was synonymous with demons in her homeland. "What are you doing in this place?"

"Serving you, my lord, as I have done for nearly ten years." She made a gesture of deference, which in light of the circumstances struck him as mocking.

"Serving me? I take it you figure from the shadows."

A cruel smile tugged at his lips, and she met it with one of reverence. It made him feel ill.

As the crowd that had begun to gather watched, he gripped her shoulder and pulled her to the ground. Yasha fell to her hands and knees hard. She must have felt the sting of the hard floor, but she did not show any fear of him even then. Everything he did she accepted, as though it were some test at the end of which she would be richly rewarded for her patience.

Zoisite looked around at their audience. These men and women who had served him here in Bamiyan, they had never seen him react nearly so violently, but rather knew him as a bastion of patience, and the shock showed on their faces. "Leave us," he told them. He gestured wildly when they simply continued to stare. "Go! Give us some privacy. This woman is a criminal." She deserved whatever happened to her; could they not see that? "I need to speak with her alone."

As they reluctantly filed out, Yasha lifted her head. "My lord, everything I have done has been for you. I have done nothing wrong."

"Nothing wrong?" Zoisite lowered his voice and leaned over her. "You attempted to poison the Princess Mercury using my own name and you still believe you have done nothing wrong?"

"It was a necessary act—"

"She is an innocent, and not only that, the guardian of the planet Mercury! Help me, you say? This is above all the last thing an officer of Earth needs to happen in front of Serenity at a delicate time like this! Not to mention—"

"Your feelings for her? Yes, I am well aware of those."

Her widening, self-satisfied grin angered Zoisite so much he could feel himself shake. To think he had almost lost the woman he loved to this vile creature. "Wipe that smile off your face or I will do it for you!" He grabbed her collar and jerked her away from him, then combed his fingers through his hair as he paced.

Yasha did not miss a beat. "It was for that reason that I had to do it." Her words were more intense than ever now, as though she had a limited time to get them all out. "Don't you see, Master? I couldn't bear to see you hurt on account of that girl! She had to be eliminated, for your sake."

Zoisite spun to face her. "Then you confess. You are the one responsible for this?"

"Yes! And I would do it again if I had to. She had to be taught a lesson that her disloyalty shall not be tolerated."

"God, I was such a fool." Zoisite groaned. "I should have been so much more careful—"

"Forgive me, Master, but, yes, you have been a fool. You have been deceived all this time and it pains me that you did not know it! Are you so blind you cannot see what is right in front of you?"

That gave Zoisite pause. "What are you talking about?"

Yasha smiled, satisfied that her entreaties had made some progress. "That little girl does not love you." She spoke of the Princess Mercury with a distaste that left a foulness in Zoisite's own mouth. "How can she? Her affections lie in quite a different direction."

"That is ludicrous—"

"With someone who is very close to you."

Zoisite opened his mouth to refute her, but for reasons even he did not know he stopped himself. Why did he not say something? He knew she was lying; in her obsession with him, she had made herself delusional over the one woman Zoisite had ever grown close to. It was jealousy, plain and simple; there could be no other explanation. Because there was no one as esteemed in Mercury's heart as he. He was quite sure of that; she had told him herself.

"Look," Yasha tried once again. She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small object that Zoisite had not seen in so many years he had to think twice about whether it had ever belonged to him. It was a ruby brooch bracketed by golden elephants. "See?" She held it up to him as evidence. "Her heart may be fickle but _I_ have remained loyal to you through everything. I was the first, Lord Zoisite. Don't you remember? You entrusted your secrets to me before you ever met that boy, or that spacewoman tramp. Their faith may be hollow, but _I_ would die for you!"

"You should."

The slightest flicker of fear crossed her coal-black eyes then. "Sir?"

In a sudden burst of anger he was only just able to control, Zoisite plucked the ruby from her hand and flung it far across the room. He hoped it shattered against the wall that it hit, like his own restraint was threatening to do. "I ought to kill you for what you've done, you delusional wretch. You dare question my disciple's loyalty to me? My beloved's? No . . . it is _you_ who have betrayed me."

That word struck her more fiercely than the threat of death had. "Betrayed. . . . No. No, my lord. It was for your sa—"

"My sake, yes, so you say." The cruel smile returned to Zoisite's lips, and he at once loathed it and yearned to give into the lust for vengeance that he could feel building just below his surface. God knew, it would have been justified. But stronger yet was his determination not to let his hot emotions get the better of his judgment. "Perhaps for my own sake I shouldn't wait to have you executed. Maybe I should rid myself of you right here myself, once and for all."

"It would be an honor to meet my fate at your hands." But even as she said so, Yasha trembled.

Zoisite relished that small victory, but even that was not enough to satisfy him. He wondered, in a sort of fearful delight, if anything would.

"Guards!" he yelled.

Yasha flinched slightly at the volume of his voice but met his eyes. "You will thank me one day for what I've done."

"I very much doubt it. I only hope that I do not regret my decision now. Lock her up," he told the guards who had come at his call, "alone, and do not let her see daylight. I'll decide what to do with her later."

The guards saluted and lifted the woman up by her arms. She did not resist them, only seemed to look at him as though pleading for him to see the same perverted sense in her actions as she did.

"I never want to see her again," he said more to Yasha than the guards, and waved them on their way.

He went outside, but the cool air of the deepening twilight over the desert did little to quell the ill feeling inside him; and the sounds of laborers finishing up for the night, rather than keep him from dwelling on this mistake he should have prevented, only added to his bitterness.

The Moon was in its first quarter against a darkening turquoise sky. Beneath it, the trails of an airship were stained a rosy orange by the light of the setting sun, already sunk below the cliffs that loomed over the city. From the surface of the Earth, space looked as calm and unchanged as it had ever been, with no sign of the turmoil that lay beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

——

"Then I suppose there is no turning back now. This makes it official," Zoisite said as though to himself as he fingered the new medal on his uniform. "We have reached the point in this war where Serenity is forced to concede she needs our help, only not as Earthmen."

Nephrite raised an eyebrow at him. "Would you rather have it some other way? I thought this was what you wanted."

He wasn't sure how to answer, so he just opened his mouth, then shut it again when Jadeite laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "If I may add my opinion, I think we should shoulder our new duties with the gravity these times demand. Yes, it would be easy to say we warned the Moon Kingdom the conflict on Uranus and Saturn could not be contained as it was, but that is passed now; and whether their fall could have been prevented or not . . . let historians decide. We are not anything different than what we were a year ago. We still serve Endymion and the Earth Kingdom. But the Jovian system needs our help now, and who is anyone in this new millennium to deny them aid when they need it most?"

Zoisite took a deep breath. That hand squeezing his shoulder briefly before it was gone was a comfort, but only a temporary one. "I know you're right, Jadeite."

The other smiled. "Good. I suppose your technical expertise will come in handy there. I'm going to be joining Kunzite in the effort on Mars. So far it hasn't been affected like Jupiter and the Asteroid Belt, but with rumors already circulating about a faction disloyal to the Queen in the southern hemisphere, I can't risk seeing the planet turn into another Titan."

Zoisite nodded his understanding. He may have only known it the last few years, but that had been ample time for Jadeite to become enamored of his princess's world and the people in it. And, Zoisite suspected, there were many on the red planet who felt the same way about him, Earthman though he was. It was only natural for one in such a position to want to do everything in his power to protect what is precious to him.

The sound of a more delicate pair of shoes clicking on the floor tiles stirred Zoisite from his thoughts, and he looked up to see Mercury hurrying toward him.

She stopped just short of throwing her arms about his neck, as he had witnessed Venus and Jupiter do to his comrades on more than one occasion, and Zoisite could not help feeling wounded over that. The close call with Yasha was still fresh in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to banish it.

Thus the smile on his lips felt fragile and forced when he asked her, "What's this?"

She was dressed as Zoisite had never seen her before, in an armored bodice and a short pleated skirt, long boots and gloves and ribbons that matched the color of her hair and eyes. The gold of a crown winked on her forehead from beneath her hair, reminding him she was a princess in her own right, though there was something about her now of a centurion preparing for battle.

"I heard Serenity was sending you to the Asteroid Belt," she said. "Well, I wanted to tell you myself. I'll be accompanying you there. You and I . . . we'll be fighting side by side."

Nephrite's eyes met his over Mercury's shoulder with a meaningful look, and he turned himself and Jadeite away out of respect for his comrade's privacy. Nonetheless, it was still automatic for Zoisite to take her shoulders and lower his voice. "Princess, I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"Why not?" Her blue eyes searched him.

"The factories are dangerous. God, the whole area is a mine field."

"And I know how such places work better than almost anyone. Do you forget, Zoisite, that my own planet is a mining world? The disruption of the transportation of precious resources from the asteroids by these insurgent pirates is a problem that is very close to my heart, and I daresay her majesty's navy can benefit from my knowledge." She shrugged off Zoisite's hands—politely, but still uncomfortably. "Besides, I can hold my own in a fight. Just because you've never seen what I can do—"

"I didn't mean to imply that. And believe me, I have the utmost faith in your ability to command a ship through that place. It's only that. . . ."

"I understand if you want to protect me out of some archaic sense of chivalry, but I was raised for just this kind of possibility. I am a guardian of the Princess Serenity and the Moon Kingdom. I am one of her sailor-soldiers. I won't fall easily."

Mercury put her hand to the brooch at her breast, and it made something sink inside of Zoisite. They would be embarking on this campaign together, and yet in that moment he felt like he had already lost her—perhaps never had her to begin with. And he did not know where that feeling sprang from, only that it was total.

It made him reply much colder than he had intended, "I hope not. The Princess cannot afford to lose your service."

Those words had meant many kind things in his mind, but none of them seemed to come across in the delivery; looking back, perhaps he should not have spoken them. They made Mercury start and look up. "And you?"

Suddenly Zoisite's tongue refused to work.

"Just a few months ago you were determined to marry me. You wouldn't give up until I belonged to you."

"I pushed you too hard," Zoisite said, though he did not meet her eyes. "I realize that now. I realize—like you say—your duty is to your Princess, not me. Just like mine is to my Prince."

Mercury let out a breath in frustration. "And that warrants pushing yourself away from me? Not speaking to me these last few months? Can't we find some middle ground?" Mercury paused, pained to say what she had to say next. "I feel like I hardly know you anymore. This isn't the Zoisite I fell in love with—the Zoisite who said he loved me—"

"These are grave times, Mercury. There is so much to think about."

"Which just makes me miss you even more. I'm afraid you've become as cold as your hands."

Silence descended between them at that—perhaps for only a moment, but it seemed to Mercury much longer. When Zoisite spoke again—to her eyes, now, like he used to—it was with a weariness she suspected bordered on impatience, and she could not think of what she had done to deserve it. "Things will be different when this war is over," he said. "I promise you that. Things will change."

"Everything will," she corrected him. "It already has."

——

_Once dissent took hold it spread like wildfire through this system. Once the outer planets realized Queen Serenity's omnipotence did not have the reach they had all been raised believing, insecurity invaded like an infection, and despair welled within those who felt themselves abandoned by that not-so-absolute power in their time of greatest need. An alien force was responsible for nurturing these seeds, but I cannot think it planted them. It simply brought them out of hibernation. _

_I wonder if any of us could have stopped it if we knew. If we had known how big it would be. . . . _

_If we had known the slopes of Mount Olympus on Mars where we had taken such pleasure would become fields for carrion birds; that the rotting carcasses of men and ships would clog the once calm straits of the Valley of the Mariners. And the scorched earth that soaked up all that blood . . . was it just an illusion that the planet seemed so much redder from space than before?_

——

From the bridge of the pride of Serenity's fleet, past the window panes that separated them from the cold vacuum of space, another factory burned across the Asteroid Belt. The explosion opened like a bloom on fast-forward, like a pink peony swallowing up the precious gases inside. The noxious byproducts of the smelters and the oxygen that sustained the colonists—the fires were not particular. Flames faded to golden tendrils that trailed long arms into space as the asteroid slowly turned. From this distance, the destruction was a beautiful ballet tumbling through the void; and it was easy not to think of the bodies of the men who had worked it, burnt and flash-freezing as they floated into space—if any bodies even remained.

Except in the case of Bunbo, who had seen them all before this, and for whom the scene was a nightmare come true.

Crew members stared with mouths and eyes wide open. Neither the fighting on the surface of Mars, nor the violence that still raged on the Jovian moons, even on the remains of Titan like embers among ashes, could so effectively put into these spacemen the true fragility of their existence. In their minds they knew the dead were guilty of treason—treason of the worst kind, against Serenity herself, and with her the Silver Millennium and the sacred order it represented—but in a deeper part of them they felt their most basic kinship with their rebel enemies, and were horrified.

Zoisite was shouting orders to the petrified crew that largely went ignored. Not on purpose; it just took a greater will to tear one's eyes away from the fires today than it did before. This was not what was supposed to happen, he chastised them all. The fires were evidence of their failure in space. True they had been sent by Serenity to bring the rebels to justice, to quell their uprising, but in doing so their enemy was crippling what little infrastructure the Silver Millennium had left, one world at a time. Was this the kind of victory they wanted—was this the price they were willing to pay for it?

Bunbo heard him, but there was little he could do. He was not a soldier, nor an officer. He had no authority, no power here in space. All he could do was dream of tragedies to come, and wait for them to unfold before his eyes.

——

Another trail of vapor streaked across the sky, then yet another, as more meteors fell toward the surface of Mars—toward a horizon of dunes on which the enemy marched slowly forward.

"It's no wonder they're saying in the temples the world is coming to an end," Jadeite said as he watched their progress from where the Queen's forces stood gathered to go out and meet them. "It feels like the sky itself is falling."

Deep underground the earth rocked with a new series of impacts. Kunzite exhaled deeply as he looked up into the midnight blue of the zenith, squinting out the sunlight. "I only wish our comrades in the Asteroid Belt could do something more about these projectiles."

For some time now, the rebels who had taken over mining operations had been sending smaller satellites into the Martian gravity well in an attempt to thwart the Silver Millennium's efforts on the planet's surface, but so far they did as much harm to their own comrades' cause as good.

That very thought must have been on Jadeite's mind as he snorted. "The thunder from their aft will probably make them feel like they've got the gods on their side. Their arrogance can only work to our advantage."

"Careful, Master Jadeite." From the saddle of his nervous mount, the captain of the Mars Palace's guard made a sign in the air before him to ward off evil. "I would appreciate it if you did not jinx my men."

Jadeite smiled a lopsided smile, and tilted his head to gaze down into the pass behind them which opened onto the valley, where the Queen's men and those of the Martian army still loyal to their princess waited concealed behind the rock. The enemy was large in number, but so were they, and they were better equipped.

"None of us expects this to be an easy fight," Kunzite said as though reading his mind, "but we have the strength of Serenity and the Silver Millennium behind us."

And on this world, in these times, that was all that needed to be said.

Though the figures marching across the dried lakebed toward them in the distance were tiny, he squinted and nodded in satisfaction. Then he turned to the Martian captain. "Our enemy is moving just as we hoped they would, and showing no signs of slowing. I think we will have the element of surprise after all. We'll thin their numbers on the plains, but if a retreat into the pass becomes necessary, our guns will finish them off there."

"Very good." The captain turned his horse, and gave down a call to the troops to ready themselves. From down the slope, the calls of officers rallying their regiments around their princess and guardian, or around the Silver Millennium, that its glorious peace should be restored, reached Endymion's men as faint echoes. The captain turned back to them, saying, "Do either of you gentlemen need a ride?"

Kunzite put a hand on Jadeite's shoulder and the younger of the two men smiled abashedly.

The captain lowered the face mask from the brim of his helmet into place. He unsheathed his sword and raised it into the air. A tense silence descended upon the pass until the enemy came within a satisfactory distance; and when that blade came down it erupted all the more suddenly, like water rushing through a broken dam. That was how the soldiers poured out of the pass as well, and the morning sun glinted off their armor like the breakers of waves against the rusty earth—against the dark heads of the enemy forces when the two sides at last engaged.

The captain spurred his mount, and Jadeite swung himself nimbly behind the saddle at the last moment. All down the steep slope the pounding of hooves on the hard-packed sand and gravel mirrored his heartbeat, as each second brought them closer to the fray. He had his sword ready when they entered it—dove into it head-on, knocking spears and swords from hands and aiming for the throat.

Even a Martian horse, even in this gravity, would soon get bogged down in such a melee with two men on its back; and in any case, Jadeite fought better on his own two feet. When he saw his chance he hopped down. There was not a second to stop and catch his breath; immediately from his right someone swung down with a heavy blade. He parried, and in that man's place someone else appeared to occupy Jadeite's sword arm. Unfortunately for them, Jadeite did not go into battle without a sidearm, and he was more than capable of wielding two swords at once. Perhaps it was his lack of a shield that made the enemy so bold as to practically fall on his blades, but he carried all the protection he needed in the tip of his index finger.

Gradually he cut a path through the enemy's ranks, but there was no end to the horde in sight. Nor was there any time to so much as wipe the sweat from his brow that made his hair stick in his eyes. No matter; all it meant was that he would have to pull out all the stops from now on.

There was a great deal of commotion at his left over the ringing of clashing steel, and he looked up just in time to see enemy troops go flying through the air as though from a bomb going off. No one, however, he doubted even one of these zealot rebels, would be foolish enough to plant a bomb in the middle of such close combat. Jadeite's lips widened again in a grin as Kunzite strode out of the center of it. His cold gaze seemed at first to pass right over Jadeite.

"Kunzite!" the other called to him, before another attacker temporarily demanded his attention.

That coaxed a smile from his comrade, and Kunzite hurried to Jadeite's side, repelling one blade after another as he did so as though he were swatting at flies.

"Didn't take you too long to catch up, I see," Jadeite said between breaths.

A moment's reprieve allowed them to exchange a quick bit of banter, leaning shoulder to shoulder to better make themselves heard over the roar of battle. "It wasn't difficult to find a ride," Kunzite shot back. "They don't make horses here like they do on Earth."

"No, they don't." Jadeite snorted. "But unfortunately for our enemy, the same goes for the men."

This army of rebels, which had thus far managed to so successfully oppose the established order practically by their reckless drive alone, was quickly showing how loose what organization they did have behind their desperate tactics really was. In a move that was not well thought out, they seemed to come to the conclusion they would take the two of Endymion's generals down en masse, but that, Jadeite knew, would be their undoing. Kunzite saw it coming and repelled the first wave—not with his longsword but with a wave of his hand and a flash of light that encircled them both like a protective dome.

Of course, not to be outdone, Jadeite was there to greet the next bunch of fools with a rippling wave of heat that scorched their skin and uniforms and made them cover their eyes in agony, drop weapons suddenly too hot to hold.

Kunzite nodded to Jadeite in appreciation over his shoulder, but there was a dangerous glimmer in his pale eyes the purpose behind which was never far from Jadeite's own heart. Despite the death they dealt around them, they could not ignore the spirit of competition that had ruled their training since they were barely out of childhood. It fueled Jadeite into greater action, sending a thrill through his bloodstream. This was the camaraderie, the heightened sense of being part of a brotherhood, of the living, of a part of something greater than oneself that they spoke of in the epic tales of old. Terrible though the purpose, this was what they had been born to do, to defend their Prince and all he stood for with the sword.

And like those epics, it was the odds being so utterly stacked against them that drove that sense of purpose, of the glory its fulfillment would bring. Even should the enemy sound the retreat, even should they drive the Martian army into the hills and themselves to be pulverized on the rocks, they would regroup, re-amass, and attack again some other time. They would keep coming, and crushing them altogether would be like trying to dig a hole in the sand.

But it was precisely the seemingly futile nature of the struggle that made it all the more worth fighting to Jadeite. The struggle of Order against the forces of Chaos was never simple, nor clean, for if it were it would have lost its beauty for him long ago.

——

"We have a line to Master Kunzite on the ground," said a commanding officer from aboard one of the Moon Kingdom's ships orbiting Mars. "Shall I patch him through?"

In the throne room back in the Moon Palace, its occupants leaned forward in tense anticipation. It felt like so long since the last transmission from the forces on Mars, even if it had only been a few Earth days—even if Zoisite had just crossed Mars's orbit himself within the last week.

"By all means, do it at once," Serenity said, settling back in her chair, and the next moment the commander's face was replaced by that of Kunzite.

He was still giving orders over his shoulder when they saw him, to men they could just glimpse moving in and out of picture, whose uniforms were pink with the dust of the southern deserts. Kunzite himself was none the better for wear. His fair face seemed darker than usual, his silver uniform spotted by soot and by blood that was not his own. He did not pay it any attention as he put his hand to his breast and bowed his head in salute to the Queen; in these times, his appearance was the least of the lunar court's concern.

"What news from the Martian front?" she asked him.

"Your highness. . . ." His voice was garbled by static, but he managed nonetheless to make himself heard. "It has been a trying last couple of days, but we have beaten the enemy back to the southern edge of the Plain of the Sun in the east, and your agents are holding them off in Tyrrhena in the west. We have them on the run, but I fear the cities in the southern hemisphere have already fallen to them. It would explain why we have been unable to contact our allies there, why the effort against us by the Martian faction and that in the Asteroid Belt has been so coordinated. They have control of the pole, and its water supply. . . ."

He paused to catch his breath, though there was nothing hurried in his manner of delivery.

"If we had more ships we could cut off their supply routes from space. Your highness, there simply are not enough to effectively cover the Jovian system, the Asteroid Belts, _and_ Martian orbit. Our army has been successful thus far, but we have lost a great many able bodies nonetheless, not to mention the vast stretches of settled land that have been turned to dust by our enemy. We beat them back and still they keep coming in seemingly endless number, without any regard for their losses, like ants."

"I regret to hear that, Master Kunzite," said the Queen, and no one doubted her sincerity even if her manner was cool, "almost as much as I regret to tell you that there is little else I can do. Our forces are stretched thin, yet we cannot leave the Silver Millennium unguarded either."

"I understand, your majesty."

"I intend to send Zoisite back to the Asteroid Belt on the third-quarter moon. . . ." She gestured toward the young man in question, who nodded his recognition to her.

Zoisite would not say so, but the order could not come soon enough. He had been aching to return to battle ever since he was forced to return to the Moon Kingdom—a retreat, as far as he was concerned, that could have been avoided, that did not have to be. He returned his gaze to the screen, and for a split second he was sure that his and Kunzite's eyes met across the vast distance of space—that for a heartbeat the regrets that this war and his own pride had not given him a moment to express were communicated. However, it was just as likely that was a product of Zoisite's imagination.

I swear to you, Kunzite—he longed to say, but his tongue was tied in this throne room—and Jadeite as well, I _will_ cut off the head of this beast in space and you won't have to suffer this lack of progress any further. If you will just be patient with Serenity in the meantime.

"But I cannot spare removing Jupiter and Mercury from the Jovian system. Though I wish with all my heart we were not fighting this battle on two fronts, that is the reality we must accept."

A fresh wave of static tore at Kunzite's response, but it seemed nevertheless to be a solemn acknowledgment.

"Can you repeat the last part?" Serenity said. "Your signal is breaking up."

"I said," Kunzite raised his voice, "Jadeite was able to intercept transmissions from the enemy. He says that they speak often of some 'great master' and a queen that they serve. He wasn't able to get any names except one. A leader of some sort going by the name Danburite. Does that sound familiar?"

Artemis and Luna looked around at the throne room, exchanging glances with those gathered there, but the name seemed to ring no bells for anyone. Serenity simply answered, "I don't recall a Danburite ever being in my service. Could this person be from Earth?"

Zoisite held his tongue against taking offense at her question, but Kunzite did not seem the least bothered. "I highly doubt it. Our enemy's purpose here is strongly against anything to do with Earth. Most of them are spacemen from the outer system, so it would . . ." What he said next was lost, his picture obscured as well, but what made it through when reception returned was: ". . . could determine, they are calling themselves the Dark Agency."

The message was suddenly clear at the end of his sentence, making the last two words ring with a note of ominous finality.

"We will continue to monitor their transmissions over the next few days, after which we plan to—"

Kunzite cut himself off abruptly, and turned his head to someone off camera who was giving him information which those in the throne room could not hear. But they could watch, despite the interference, as his eyes darkened with every passing second, and the muscles of his jaw clenched, and they knew before he said anything that whatever news it was, it was certainly not pleasant.

"Jadeite!" he called over his shoulder. When the man in question hurried to his side, Kunzite yelled something to him even though they were only inches apart. Jadeite nodded, mouthed an affirmative, and rushed out of picture, waving one arm overhead to call for attention before he disappeared from view. It was a moment more before those watching understood the reason why they had not been able to hear the two men's banter; the steady hum that obscured the sound was not a problem with the telecommunication system; it was coming straight through the signal from the surface of Mars itself.

Though he could not have said then why he did it, Zoisite glanced over his shoulder at Venus, who sat tense at her Princess's side, and found the young woman staring back at him. They both maintained their professionalism, but in those eyes he caught a tremor of dread that mirrored what he felt inside.

"Master Kunzite," Serenity was saying in the meantime, "what is happening over there? Are you under attack?"

"I'm not sure, your highness. There's. . . ." On the other side of the connection, he turned back to the screen and visibly composed himself. "No, your majesty. There is no attack at this time. I have just been informed the enemy's forces are gathering on the hills but that is all they're doing. It's the weather . . . —thing I've never seen before. It's. . . ."

His mouth kept moving but the sound was a wash of hissing static, and black bars flickered across his image, cutting him up. Artemis winced at the noise and Serenity's impatience with the technology's shortcomings began to show, but it was this violent warping of Kunzite's picture in particular that made Zoisite so uneasy to see.

". . . . told us it was the wrong time of year for sandstorms. Besides, it doesn't . . . right. This can't be a normal con— . . ."

Then Kunzite's voice faded out entirely.

It allowed those in the Moon Palace to catch for the first time a faint strain of the method to the madness that was that pervasive hum—to hear what sounded eerily like a voice, speaking low, unintelligible words through the video feed itself, like some sort of mystic's chant heard from a distance. The sheer alienness of it sent a shiver down Zoisite's spine, and the inability of any of those gathered to make sense of this sinister new sound made them thankful when Serenity spoke up again—herself as though with the purpose of banishing it immediately from their consciousness.

"Kunzite. . . . Master Kunzite!" she tried, the desperation beginning to creep into her voice in earnest. He turned back to the screen, picking up a headset as she asked him, "Please tell us what is happening out there!"

"I'm switching to an audio-only channel for better reception," he said moments before the picture went black. His voice reached them much clearer after that; the steady, hissing roar still pervaded the background, but without the same sinister nuances. Now it did sound like a storm, a mere weather phenomenon, full of wind, an electric crackle, and the almost tangible grittiness of gravel.

"Something is interfering with our signal here. Probably the sandstorm—if you can even call it that. To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to call this strange weather we are witnessing here. No one quite does. It appeared from out of the south just moments ago, without any warning, moving fast in our direction. They're saying it's stretched out across the whole horizon. . . . One way or another, this is no ordinary storm. I'm looking out at it now. The clouds, they're . . . they're black, your highness. Deep, dark red from the sand and pitch black above. You can't even see into it—can't make out the enemy's forces. It looks as though they have been swallowed up—"

"Lord Kunzite," someone shouted frantically in the background, "it's still heading this way! It will roll straight over the top of us if we don't do something!"

He tried to calm the man while Serenity asked him, "Are you able to move? Flee to a more sheltered location? The front line can always be reestablished; your lives are the most important thing. If you have the time to escape—"

"No good," came the reply. "It's moving too fast and we are too many. Our camp here is made to withstand the seasonal storms; we can survive the winds if we can gather everyone in time."

"But you said yourself this is no natural storm."

Kunzite was slow in replying. For a long moment, only the frantic bustling about around him made it over the airwaves, so that Zoisite feared for a heartbeat that something had happened to his comrade.

When Kunzite did answer, his manner did little in the way of reassuring them. He answered simply, resolutely: "I will stay on this channel until I'm no longer able, your highness."

His meaning was perfectly clear to those in the throne room, and it was for that reason that it sat well with no one.

Because in other words, he could give no guarantees he and the troops stationed on Mars in its Plain of the Sun would make it through the ordeal. Even an ordinary, seasonal storm in Mars's lower hemisphere, with its sand-laden hurricane-force winds, had the power to strip flesh from the bones of any soul unfortunate enough to be caught in the wilderness unaware.

"I appreciate it," said Serenity. "But what of the troops? Surely they are in need of your leadership at a time like this."

"Jadeite is making sure the word gets out to all the rest, but no one here needs re— . . . are moving to safer. . . ."

Again there was static, so that it took his listeners a moment to understand that the garbled exclamations that finally made it through were not background noise; it was Kunzite himself who was muttering an awe-filled curse on the other side of the line.

"My God, your highness should only be here to see this!" As if with a purpose, the interference died away so that he might explain: "This storm—whatever it is—it's like a black wall, that's the only way I can describe it, like nightfall were a physical body, a tidal wave. . . . Does this thing ever . . . Is this what it's like to look into the dark arm of the galaxy?"

"Master Kunzite, where are you? Are you still above ground?"

"I no longer know what it is I am looking at, your majesty—if there is even a thing we can do to protect ourselves against this. I don't fear the wind, it's only. . . . Well, it's so solid, it's . . . Somehow, perhaps this doesn't make any sense—"

"You should be returning to the safety of the fortress—"

"It is so . . . (dare I use the word?) . . . _pure—_"

"Kunzite, stop being foolish. I am ordering you to get out of the open!"

He did not reply, but the strange calm that had taken over his last words to them was not easily disregarded by those in the throne room. "What is he— You mean he's still out there! Kunzite, what are you doing?" Princess Venus said to the screen, and it was only what Zoisite wanted to say himself. The Queen, however, ignored her and focused her attentions on the din of panicked cries that reached them from the surface of Mars—the yells to find cover, the defeated sobs, and running through it all, the abrasive rushing of the wind, the crackling of tiny grains of sand slamming against the walls of the fortress. Even without picture, it was all too easy for those listening to feel like they were there themselves, that the gravel that rained down was doing so on the ceiling of the Moon Palace, and they could hardly speak out of terror for their comrades.

"Master Kunzite," Serenity said, "don't forget your promise to me to stay on this line."

Over the sound of heavy breathing and the rushing of bodies they could just make out his voice: "I'm still here, your majesty. But this darkness, this artificial night . . . beating upon us. . . . —annot see anything. It's blotted out the sun and swallows up all the light around us. . . ." He was yelling into the mouthpiece through bursts of clarity, and yet they could hardly hear him. ". . . as pitch. . . . can hardly hear a thing, it . . . like someone screaming into our heads, and we can't see anything, not even our hands in front of us. I'm afraid th— . . . —hit . . . —on't be able to st— . . . _No! Stop thi— Cease this—cease this madness at once! Put down your . . . Jadeite! Jadeite, wher— Tell these men . . . stop. We can't risk . . . outbreak in this dark. People will be . . . suf— . . . more casualties. . . . Above all . . . not have panic! Jadei—_"

They lost him again, as the signal warped his words into an unintelligible drone, which made speech indistinguishable from scream. Zoisite's heart beat double-time to think that the distorted noise that reached them might just as easily have been the clash of blades, or a cry of agony, or the language of some alien creature—there was simply no way to tell. If just that uncertainty were terrifying, he could only begin to fathom the horror of those trapped in that darkness, while the winds beat down on top of them, what chaos they might be inclined to fall into only too naturally.

If only there were something he could do, but there was not. He could only listen to the transmission coming from that living hell, and imagine the worst.

And then the line went dead.

"Master Kunzite?" Serenity tried again, but to no avail. "Jadeite? . . . Is anyone there?"

The silence stretched on.

"_Kunzite!_" Venus cried and bolted forward without thinking. She caught herself when she was on her feet, and the war that waged inside her between her sacred duty and the feelings she had tried so hard this entire time to keep hidden was clear in the agony in the lines of her body, the terror in her wide eyes.

Either way she lost, and with that revelation she sank to her knees while the Queen turned her head in shame. The Princess Serenity's hand on Venus's shoulder went largely ignored as the young woman continued to stare at the screen, tears welling in her eyes.

Watching that scene, Zoisite felt for the first time a pang of deep sympathy for, if not outright kinship with the girl. The only jealousy that remained in him now was for her ability to give any sort of voice to the grief she felt. In the silence of the chamber, the sobs she tried very hard to suppress with her cupped hand echoed in his ears, while he, on the other hand, who was losing his comrades and beloved friends, could express nothing, only wallow in the deep numbness of sorrow and disbelief that gripped his entire body and would not allow him to move.

"Try to calm yourself, Venus," the Queen Serenity finally acknowledged her in a whisper. "We have merely lost the signal. We do not know how Master Kunzite and Master Jadeite are faring."

Her logic was, as always, impeccable, but still inside Zoisite knew, just as Venus did, that this was no temporary interruption. He could feel it in his bones, in the finality of the disruption, that the Kunzite and Jadeite he knew were gone; and that he would never hear nor see them again.

A sudden wave of nausea threatened to make him double up right there in Serenity's presence, but he managed to catch himself and the gravity of reality was allowed to sink fully into him: _they are gone._

"My Queen." The return of the ship's commander to the screen interrupted the grief of those in the throne room. "I have something you will want to see."

It was a moment before Serenity's apprehension allowed her to answer, "Go ahead."

"Put it on the screen."

The commander nodded to a technician, and a second later his image was replaced by one that those in the Moon Kingdom at first glance had some difficulty making sense of. The reason was that what appeared before them was a sight so unnatural their minds did not know how nor wanted to comprehend it. So when they finally did understand what the picture was telling them, it was with a horror that gripped everyone's breath. Serenity leaned forward in her chair, but only after even she visibly recoiled from the revelation.

The picture was of Mars from orbit, the white tendrils of the ice cap of the southern pole visible on one edge of the orb. Of recognizable features other than that, however, there were few, as a black cloud was covering a good portion of the planet's surface like India ink flung out over the globe, blotting anything and everything beneath it out of sight. And like ink, soaking into a paper's fibers, like some amoebic gargantua its mass was growing—spreading pitch-black fingers that grabbed at more and more of the red planet as though literally consuming it territory by territory. Where it sprang from, no one could say: there was no end to it in sight.

"Commander, what am I looking at?" Serenity breathed.

"I . . . don't know, your highness."

Which was in some sense false. They all knew what it was, in their cells' memory if not in their rational minds. It was darkness incarnate, black matter, a tumor born of the universe or of the human psyche that no light could escape. And Zoisite wondered if Serenity was thinking the same thing: that there was a possibility even the Silver Imperium Crystal's brilliance would not be able to penetrate its totality.

"Master Zoisite," she said, as though reading his thoughts.

He shook himself and bowed his head to her—even if she could not turn her eyes from the screen to look at him herself.

"You say you have constructed on Earth, without my consent, a fleet of ships of enormous firepower. Is that true?"

"Yes, your highness."

In the pause that followed, he expected a chastisement. But instead of the rod, he got the response he had forgotten he had been waiting for.

"Then you have my blessing to send them into space, and wipe every last trace of that thing from this solar system."

IV.Peace

The planet Venus from space was little different from Earth at first glance. Beneath a marbled veil of clouds, dark blue ocean was broken by a few forested continents stretching across the equator and north pole, themselves dotted with the bleak peaks of volcanoes more massive than any back home.

Perhaps it was because of the similarities between the two sister planets that the lights flashing below were to Zoisite like a portentous vision. In the dark they might have been indistinguishable from the lights of the cities, but for the black smoke that rose from them, visible even from his command ship. Under those lights, the fields of Venus burned in a blaze so great he could not even fathom it.

A console chirped near Zoisite, and the one who picked it up said to him, "My lord, a transmission from Sailor Mars's ship."

He glanced out the tall windows automatically, even though he knew she, as well as Mercury, was positioned too far away to be anything bigger than a pinprick of winking light just above the curve of the planet. He waved to the young man, who bent back over the console. "You have information for me, princess?" Zoisite said.

"The recovery mission has returned from the surface of Mars."

Those words made Zoisite's heart pause momentarily in his chest, at once with hope and dread. He could not ignore the exasperation in her tone of voice over the radio, and held his breath.

"It found no survivors." She lowered her voice. "I am sorry, Zoisite."

With her revelation, the last hopes he had been holding on to sank, and he closed his eyes. "So am I. What about bodies?" he asked her.

"Plenty. But not. . . ." She could not even bring herself to say the name of the one she had lost. "Neither of . . . of your Prince's generals was among them."

Zoisite was surprised that he felt no deep agony, no nausea or sense of disorientation at the news. Perhaps they would catch up to him later, in privacy, and in idleness; but at the moment he felt only a spreading numbness and a general sense of indignation, that even after suffering such an unjust death, one in which his comrades had had no chance to defend themselves, there should not even be something left for a proper funeral befitting their sacrifice.

"Thank you, Mars," he said, "for being the bearer of this grave news."

She muttered an affirmative and cut the line.

In silence once again, Zoisite was free to say aloud to himself, "This so-called Dark Agency will not get away with what they've done. For the sake of all who have fallen, we must end this here, on this world, like Queen Serenity wishes. It gives me that much more satisfaction knowing our victory will come from these ships she ordered not be built. But how many would still be alive if we had been allowed to take this fleet into space months ago?"

He looked up to see that the eyes of his crew had turned to him, as though these muttered thoughts were a speech worth carving into their memories for the later generations. Zoisite did not think so highly of what were his simple feelings, but he understood their reasons: this crew was from Earth. The ships they manned were made by the hands of Earthmen, on Earth soil. And they carried the heaviest fire power that had been wielded by any vessel as far back as even the Queen herself could remember.

Enough to destroy worlds, she had said in a sort of fearful, reluctant admiration. Sending her navy out with his ships would be condemning what remained of the Dark Agency to a swift death, but in his mind it was long overdue in coming. "For Master Jadeite," Zoisite said, looking around at them for the support he knew he would receive. "And Master Kunzite. You all loved them as you love me. Well, this was not their war, but they gave their lives for it. For the dream of the Silver Millennium, that it might reign a thousand long years."

He shook his head. "Do not let their sacrifice be in vain."

As crew members saluted, a new voice crackled over the radio: "Lord General Zoisite, we are all locked onto the rebel targets, waiting for your command. There is just one concern, sir."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Are you certain the guns on these vessels will not cause significant damage to the planet surrounding our targets? It isn't that I doubt our accuracy—nor your and the Lord General Nephrite's genius—it is only . . . Well, these weapons are untried in actual combat—"

"They will work exactly as I have told you." Though even Zoisite had to admit, if he were honest with himself, that his official predictions for the impacts of the blasts themselves had been vague. Serenity had not been so specific in her orders, and he felt no need to second-guess her when the means of settling this war in one coordinated attack had been placed in his hands. "Just hold your position and wait for my signal. We cannot fire upon the surface until the Princess Venus and her cargo are confirmed safe."

"And what if the Dark Agency tries to attack these ships?"

Zoisite put his hand on his hip as he looked out the tall windows at the ships in formation. His pride for his creation battled with his knowledge of their one flaw: that their size and power made them harder to maneuver in an actual battle. But whether the enemy could even put up a coordinated effort in orbit with their operations in the outer solar system crushed, their access to ships and raw materials severed, was quite another question.

Then again, if that sinister weather phenomenon witnessed on Mars were repeated on Venus. . . . Zoisite shuddered to think of it, and so pushed it from his mind.

When he said nothing, the other repeated, "Sir?"

Zoisite shook himself back to the present predicament. "Hold your position," he repeated. "It is paramount that we maintain our positions at all costs. We may only have one shot. Let us make sure we get it right the first time."

If they had a single chance of saving this planet from the spreading darkness to which so many had fallen, they could not risk destroying it in the process.

——

"Hurry," Artemis urged her. "We don't know how much more time Jupiter and the others can give us."

Venus nodded, too intent on the task at hand to reply, as she strode quickly across the inner chambers of her palace. While her companion kept an eye and ear out for signs of the encroaching battle, pacing nervously like a caged cat, she went as quickly as she could through the various measures that kept the holy sword, the counterpart of the Imperium Crystal that had been entrusted to her world, safe behind otherwise impenetrable doors.

At last the final of those door rolled away, inviting the two of them into a narrow, cylindrical, gold-lined chamber at the center of which the heavy sword stood point-downward into a diadem on the floor. Despite its weight and the solid bulk of the ancient blade, Venus withdrew it in one long pull. "Good," she said with a huff as she made to wrap it quickly and strap it to her back for transport. "Now we can return the sword to the Princess in the Moon Kingdom."

"But we must hurry," Artemis repeated.

"Do you hear something?" She tried to follow his gaze, which seemed to pierce the very walls.

"No. . . . But I don't like the sound of this silence." He turned to her finally. "Are you all right to carry it?"

It was more a rhetorical question than anything, for they could not very well have entrusted the sword to him. However, surprisingly, it did not feel like the burden she had expected on Venus's back. "I'm fine," she told him.

He led her back out into the throne room, then down the corridor that would take them most quickly to the rest of their party. The golden halls with their polished volcanic stone sparkled still in the sunlight that slanted through openings in the eaves, and the warm, tropical wind was causing wind chimes to jingle; but now it all lacked the same carefree beauty it had had in their idyllic days. Now the sunlight was veiled by smoke rising from the fields below, and that sound carried in it only a sense of urgency, to make with the sword safely to the ships before it was too late.

They crossed a courtyard and almost made it to the stairs when, seemingly out of nowhere, enemy troops appeared bearing halberds and swords, blocking their progress. The two slid to a halt and turned around, hoping for another exit route. There was none. All that remained open to them was the way they had come, as the growing crowd of the enemy who called itself the Dark Agency filled the fringes of the room, boxing the two of them in—and standing between them and their comrades outside. The sword came down off Venus's back, and the cloth fell from its blade as she brandished it before herself and Artemis.

"Let us pass," she tried, though somehow she knew it was in vain. "It is not my wish to use this blade on you, but if you force my hand, I will—"

"You will do what, princess?" a voice rang out clearly from among the crowd. "If you're going to do anything, I think you should be giving it to us. Our master will put it to great use."

The crowd parted and the owner of the voice stepped forward; and Venus and Artemis could see he was a young man, looking no older than fourteen by Earthmen's standards, though his trappings were undeniably Venusian. The insignia of the Venusian army still graced his uniform, blasphemously. "Is _he_ Danburite?" Artemis whispered behind Venus. "Our enemy's leader is this kid?"

At their shocked look, the boy in question spread his hands—as though in surrender before the holy blade, but Venus knew better. "What's the matter, princess?" he said. "Don't you recognize me?"

"I know who you are," she said. "You're Danburite, leader of the faction that calls itself the Dark Agency. I know you have declared Serenity and the Silver Millennium your enemy. You have committed treason and would be punished by death."

"Only because she betrayed us first," he said as though it were an unpleasant disclaimer that must be gotten out of the way. He shook his head. "But don't avoid the question, princess. And don't tell me you've forgotten my face. All the good times we shared in this palace? Before the Earthmen came—before they sullied our paradise on this world . . . and you, my Princess Vee."

Suddenly her eyes flashed with disbelieving recognition, and the name fell from the recesses of her memory: "Adonis?"

Artemis looked at her. "You know this boy?"

"He was a nobleman's son in my court—much younger than I, but we were playmates as children." Danburite—the boy who used to be Adonis—smiled in satisfaction. At that Venus strengthened her resolve, and her grip on the sword. "But no more. The circumstances of our relationship have changed."

"Yes, they have," he agreed, "on account of Serenity—whom you continue to blindly serve—"

"Enough of this treasonous talk, Adonis. No . . . Danburite," she corrected herself. "You are not the boy I knew."

"I have grown up, seen the light. But I am the same at heart."

That was one thing Venus would not believe. She could sense it rising off him like a smell, could hear how his soul had been perverted in the inflection of his voice. She could not know if he was capable of hearing reason in such a state, but she said anyway: "What evil has Serenity done you that you would reward her with this destruction and bloodshed? These are your own people you slaughter, in your own streets! Hasn't she given you enough? Haven't you prospered under the Silver Millennium? She has not wronged you personally."

"Hasn't she?" Danburite looked around at his companions as he spoke, like an actor to his chorus. "Isn't it she who imposed the will of Earthmen on our planet, who forced us to accommodate their bigotry, their greed and exploitation? Isn't it she who broke the promise that had existed between our two kingdoms, to be brethren to one another, sister worlds, all for the sake of some prince from some lowly, up-and-coming planet because he happens to be in love with her daughter?" His eyes narrowed with an intense darkness as he turned back to Venus and lowered his voice. "Tell me, princess, is that the kind of woman you want leading this solar system?"

"Yes." Venus did not have to think before answering. "And what will you do, Danburite? Secede from the Silver Millennium? Do you think you can survive without Serenity's help? Do you think she will let you get away with this?"

Pain blossomed deep inside her, but she persisted.

"Do you think _I_ will let you?"

Danburite's gaze faltered, but only for a split second. "It doesn't matter." He said to the crowd, "We will wrest the reigns of this planet from her iron grip if it costs us our lives. We will march on the Moon Palace if need be! _That_ is the price of freedom, and we have all decided it is worth it. We were not raised to bear the yoke of Earth masters!" he said to cries of agreement. "We were not raised to walk on our knees, bow our heads!"

"And you are so convinced that is what has become of you here?" said Artemis.

"If not now then it certainly will be!"

"Your _great master_ has shown you that."

Venus spoke the words with derision, and the boy matched it, with an eerie note of reverence that sent a shiver down her spine: "She has promised much glory to come for those who serve her righteous way. She rewards us for conviction, for our loyalty, with power like even you could not imagine." He extended her his hand, unafraid of the blade with its poison tip. "Join me, Venus. Let's lead this system into a new era like we used to dream of doing, when we played make-believe in this palace as children: together. You won't have to choose your duty over your desires. You don't have to be handmaiden to a spoiled princess, serving her most frivolous whims; you can be a queen in your own right."

Venus did not answer right away. But it was not, as Danburite believed, because there was anything in his offer worth considering.

The corner of his lips turned up in a snarl he tried hard to suppress. "Is it really your loyalty that is keeping you, or something else? Your memory of Kunzite perhaps?"

Her gaze snapped to him at the mention of that name. For all she knew, he had been there on Mars that fateful day—or if not, had led the push that had ended Kunzite's life. "I'll never give an inch to your 'great master'," she growled. The holy sword was poised to strike him down.

But at the slightest tension of her muscles, a hundred arms were raised against her and Artemis, and arrows trained on them. Danburite did not even flinch; he was confident in his army's capacity to strike her down before she got more than a single blow off him. But unfortunately for Danburite, one blow was all she needed.

There was a commotion behind the mob before it could come to that, however. Danburite spun and Venus and Artemis looked up, just before a group of men were thrown through the air into the center of the room. Electricity crackled in the air in their wake, and a smile of relief returned to Venus's face.

"What—" Danburite started, but a clash of swords from another end cut him off. His men fell or backed away, taken off their guard by this sudden intrusion.

Meanwhile Jupiter strode into the room, and Venus thought she was never so happy to see her comrade. "Venus," she said, "we've come to get you and Artemis out—"

"Stop them!" Danburite ordered at the same time.

The soldiers of the Dark Agency rounded on Jupiter before she could react. Venus called out to her, but even as she did so Jupiter's attackers were smashed against columns and the far walls of the room by some invisible force. Jupiter looked back over her shoulder in gratitude, and Venus saw to her relief the tall, gangly figure of Gesen. He had only to extend a hand toward the enemy, fingers clenched halfway like a claw, and those in his sights went flying backwards, or found their own weapons taken from their hands and used against them.

Seeing that, Danburite grabbed Venus's elbow and made to wrest the sword from her grasp, but Artemis made quick work of him, and the next moment the boy was struggling to free himself from the arms that pinned his own behind his back. Venus was secretly glad that Artemis had done it too; even after all that he had changed, she was still loath to harm the boy she had grown up with.

Jupiter was at her side in seconds, with a hand on her elbow to steady Venus and the cloth that had fallen from the sword in the other. "Let's hurry," she said. "The ships are eager to take off. . . ."

That was to say nothing of the small band who had come with her, who were looking more and more ragged with each passing moment. Nephrite was holding his own, his sword flashing from one corner like lightning, as was Gesen, but the mob seemed without end.

Venus nodded her head. The sword secured once again, she had a hand free to remove the chain whip from around her waist. She glanced over her shoulder. "Artemis?"

"Bloody alien!" Danburite muttered and sank his teeth into the arm that encircled his throat.

Artemis yowled and shoved the boy away, who staggered away to the safety of his comrades.

With Jupiter leading the way and Artemis guarding her back, and Nephrite and Gesen at their limits, Venus had no other choice but to make haste and flee. But she glanced back at Danburite instinctively as she did so, perhaps hoping to find some vestige of Adonis under the boy's sinister facade that might convince her there was something in him that was still worth saving.

However, as he shouted orders for his army to follow them and not let them leave this planet, she was dismayed to discover that she could find nothing—even more so because that did nothing to assuage the guilt of losing another loved one to their enemy's dark shadow.

——

Silence descended upon Thoth so completely in the computer room at the Venusian pole that for a moment he was unable to believe the sight before him was real.

Astarte, one of the Venusian princess's closest advisors and one of the few remaining of their race, looked up at the sound of his footsteps. Below her lay a body he recognized as belonging to his sister Hathor. Her dark red hair spread about her head like a fan of blood, but otherwise there was no sign of what had befallen her only seconds before his arrival but the clanging of the dagger against the floor when it fell from Astarte's hand.

"Astarte. . . ." In his shock he could barely manage a whisper, but it carried like a gunshot under the tall ceiling. "What have you done?"

She looked up at him from beneath tight, lapis lazuli ringlets with a look in her eyes he had never seen before. They were wild and determined, but even their bearer seemed to know not what for. They were the eyes of a mad woman, a dangerous woman—a woman he did not recognize. Suddenly Thoth was aware how distant he was from the battle waging just outside this insulated building. Yet he held his ground, if for nothing else than that he was sure the answer to this entire war was within this room. With Astarte.

He turned his gaze momentarily to Hathor—long enough to confirm what he already knew within him. She was dead.

"She was like my sister as well," Astarte said by way of explanation. She stroked the dead woman's cheek fondly. "But she tried to stop me."

"You had to do it."

At his threatening tone, she raised her voice. "She had a choice, and she made her decision. We all must make it sooner or later, before this war can end." Her gaze flickered to the sword at his side. "Are you going to take your revenge?"

Thoth's eyes narrowed briefly in grief, but there was nothing he could do to change what was already done.

"I did it for us, Thoth," Astarte said when he did not respond. "For our people."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Earthmen. If we do not stand up to them, Thoth, then we are as good as slaves! Tell me this world has not changed in the last five years," she said when he shook his head dismissively. "We have lost our place in this system. Now even Serenity kowtows to their whims. How many more years will it take before they are ruling our every move, with her blessing? There aren't many of us left! You know that—"

"You're speaking nonsense—"

"Am I? Have you not felt the change for yourself?"

He snarled. "You would start this war, slaughter a million innocents, because you fear losing your spot at the top of the cosmic heap?"

"Oh no! It's about so much more than that." Hunched over Hathor's body, her heavy mane falling before her face, there was something of a lioness in Astarte's stare, in her crouch—something of a cornered lioness in a hunt, desperate and already seeing with the clarity of death. "I have seen the truth, what the Earthmen would do to us. Already they are plotting to bring down Serenity, and though it is blasphemous to say so, a part of me wonders why they should not. She makes us worship her as a living goddess, and we have done so out of fear for so long—fear of the absolute power that crystal of hers is supposed to grant her. But it has all been hollow pageantry, Thoth. She is worse than a tyrant: she is weak and her powers impotent—"

"You're delusional, Astarte."

"Am I really? I have found a new master who can appreciate our place in this system. She has shown me the way things really are, and promised me great power—greater than anything Serenity could offer us. How could I refuse her? Yet she left me the presence of mind to take these matters into my own hands. I can end her reign once and for all, before she tears this system apart like all the others. . . ."

A chill ran down Thoth's back hearing Astarte speak that way, and he repeated in dread, "'She'?"

It did not sound like she meant Serenity anymore.

"Metallia."

Thoth had no time to dwell on that name that inexplicably gave him such fear. A warning horn sounded and the panels that monitored the computers' functions lit up like a sinister rainbow. He rushed toward them. "What have you done?"

"You can't stop it." Astarte followed him with her eyes. "No one can, not even myself. I made sure of that, in case she changed my mind for me."

In a moment the situation was clear to Thoth. "You've sabotaged the planet's computers?"

The self-destruct procedure had already been started and he lacked the authority to stop it. Judging by Astarte's intensity, he doubted there was anything anyone could do now. And the implications of that were dire indeed. The tubes that served this control room went deep—down into the planet's very crust, wired into the very heart of the mountain. A self-destruct program with fingers this deep into the Venusian infrastructure would not merely cripple the planet. It would make it uninhabitable. The volcanic explosions it triggered would take out the main urban centers scattered across the globe. Within a few days, the gas would make the planet uninhabitable. The rich jungles would burn, crops wither. People would suffocate—if there were any remaining. Eventually Venus would revert to the volatile, ash-veiled world it had not been since the system was settled millennia ago.

All of spacemen's glorious struggle against the elements would have been for naught, and chaos would have won—not by chance, but by human force of will.

"When the very last of these stations has gone," Astarte said, "they will crack this planet in half. _She_ will never have this world, and neither will the Earthmen." The flash in her eyes softened, but only slightly. "I am sorry, Thoth, that I had to take you with me."

He watched the countdown end. For a moment he was almost able to believe all of this was a terrible dream, when the deep silence that followed suspended time inside the computer room. Until the ground rumbled, and then the entire mountain around them, building toward a climax he had no power to stop. That knowledge put him in a state of calm he had never known he would experience at the moment before his death. Strangely, he had no fear for himself, only for those he had no time to warn.

——

They had just made it back to the ships when it happened.

The ground shook violently beneath their feet as if it were a behemoth suddenly rousing from sleep. It threw Venus off balance under the weight of the holy sword and she tripped just feet from the ship's ramp. She closed her eyes as the ground came up to meet her fast; Danburite's army was so close on their heels there was not even a second to lose.

When she opened them, however, it was the utter silence of the battlefield that surprised her. The rumble of the earth was deafening and unceasing.

Artemis was shouting something in her ear as he helped her up. Her knees stung and doubtless bled but Venus hardly noticed. On her feet once again, looking back the way they had come, Venus froze in shock at the sight that met her.

The twisted peak of Mount Maat was on fire—but not with the burning jungles that clothed its slopes. The peak itself was split open. It billowed thick, black clouds of smoke that rose up into the already polluted sky in one massive and grotesque pillar. Lava flashed in golden fountains that spilled over the rock face, winding down toward the valley where her palace lay—and where they were still fighting back the Dark Agency.

The Queen's fighters rushed by her into the safety of the ship as the first roar like a million cracks of thunder reached them, splitting the air and their eardrums. Somehow she managed to hear Jupiter yelling to her over it: "Come on! We've got to get on board! We've got to lift off now!" And somehow her legs remembered how to work and took her up the ramp between the shielding arms of Nephrite and her comrade.

Once safely inside the ship's hold she collapsed, breathing hard, her legs aching and bruised and her arms gripping the holy sword as though it were her lifeline. In fact, she was its, and she was prepared to lay down her life to protect it, but even that sacrifice would mean nothing if their ship did not escape from his cataclysm. As it rose into the air as fast as it was able, she felt the downward pull of gravity tugging at her insides.

Yet she could still feel the shaking all around her—in the rumble of the ship's engines, in her bones. The planet, her planet, was tearing itself apart, screaming as cracks opened up in the earth, gushing molten rock and fire. It beat on her brain, like the pumice bombs that thunked against the side of the spacecraft.

"We aren't going to make it!" she yelled to Jupiter over the din, even though her comrade was crouched just beside her. It wasn't fear that made Venus say that. It was a simple fact. If they did not somehow gain a considerable amount more of speed and altitude, and fast, they would be pulverized.

Jupiter looked over her shoulder at Nephrite, but it was Gesen who nodded back. He strode over to the panel that controlled the ramp and lowered it.

Jupiter jumped to her feet. "What are you doing?"

"The only thing I can," he called back. Locking the ramp at a narrow angle and bracing himself well, he leaned out to meet the inferno that roiled beneath them, obscuring the face of the planet Venus. The heat of it rushed into the ship, but Gesen faced it bravely; and, concentrating all his power, he extended a hand toward the fire and smoke with palm outward as though he could politely ask it to stop and let them go.

At the same time, a ball of fire from one of the exploding mountains was rapidly rising to meet them. Venus stared, unable to look away, and waited for it to engulf the ship and all its passengers. But instead, at the last moment, it stopped a precious few yards from them, and doubled back upon itself. There was silence from above as well as the pumice bombs were deflected without hitting the hull. The ship's passengers finally remembered to breathe.

And the inferno continued to build around them.

Gesen's hand shook. He grabbed its wrist with his other hand, but he knew it would not keep him from being overwhelmed. Never had he had to use his telekinesis on a force so great, so all-consuming, or so unpredictable. He was practically battling an entire planet—a planet which was doing its best to swallow them up. "I can't keep this up much longer!" he called back over his shoulder. "Some help would be nice!"

"Take my power."

Jupiter was at his side before the words were all out, wrapping one arm about his waist. Nephrite's arm went about his shoulders the next moment, and the two exchanged glances and a nod.

As her planet screamed and the ship groaned around them, Venus prayed.

——

Crew members exclaimed in alarm and rose from their seats to better see out the ship's windows the eruptions of fire and smoke blossoming all over the surface of Venus. Frantic calls confirmed in short order that none of the ships had fired prematurely, and neither could the two princesses stationed on the other side of the world believe what they were seeing. "Someone must have rigged the volcanoes to explode," Mercury said over the radio. "The system keeping this planet stable has been in place for several millennia. It wouldn't happen all on its own, let alone all at once."

"The Dark Agency?" Mars asked her.

"I don't know."

"But they will be destroyed in it," Zoisite said to himself, "one way or another." Whoever or whatever had caused the planet to so suddenly, and so completely, become this volatile, it looked from orbit like the residents of fiery Hell had finally grown tired of the underground, and were breaking their own way through the surface—like the planet Venus were experiencing the violence of its birth all over again, without any regard for the hundreds of thousands of souls who still remained on it. It was at once beautiful and terrifying—a glimpse into the solar system's beginning and its end that, either way, felt like a blasphemy to witness.

"Mars . . ." Mercury gasped, "Venus and Jupiter are still down there!"

Zoisite started. _Nephrite!_

"Get me Master Nephrite's channel." Zoisite strode over to the communications console, and the technician, seeing his determination, did so right away. "Nephrite," Zoisite spoke toward the speaker when he was given the all-clear, "Nephrite, if you can hear me, answer me. This is Zoisite. It's urgent. Tell me, is your party all right?"

Please answer, he prayed to a god he had long given up; please be alive.

Below his position, the Sappho Islands cracked their tips one after another, twinkling against the sea like topazes spilled from a necklace. Farther to the west, and up north inside the hazy curve of the globe, plumes of lava rose miles into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, nothing except static continued to answer Zoisite's call.

He tried again, nudging the technician out of the way to work the machine himself. "Nephrite!" He could no longer help the panic rising into his voice. "Where in God's name are you? Answer me! Tell me you're still with us!"

"We're still here!" the reply finally came.

He recognized the voice as that of Sailor Venus—tremulous with a fear she had never allowed him to see nor hear before. Zoisite held his breath. "And Nephrite?"

"He's all right. He and Jupiter are here safe with me. Our ship has just entered the stratosphere and is on its way to rendezvous with you in space." She added with relief, "The holy blade will be returned to Princess Serenity intact."

Zoisite could not care a lick about some ancient relic, however, as he braced himself against the console in gratitude. His comrade—the man who was like a brother to him—and their allies were safe, they had escaped this horrible inferno, and that was all that mattered to him. Mars and Mercury's jubilant voices reaching him across the airwaves told a similar story.

"Master Zoisite," Venus said out of the blue after she had reassured them.

He roused himself and answered, "I'm still here, princess."

When she spoke again it was with a seriousness that was not like her, even after all the disagreements between the two of them in the past. She had been gravely wounded by this battle, that voice said, not physically but deep in her soul, by sins that could not be forgiven.

"If you still have the Dark Agency's bases in your fleet's sights, then give them the order to fire."

"But, ma'am," said the same commander who had questioned their prudence earlier, "with the planet in this condition already, we cannot be responsible for what our weaponry will do! We never accounted for a disaster of this magnitude in our calculations—"

"Just do as I say," Zoisite cut him off. "And do not make Sailor Venus repeat herself." He understood now precisely what she meant, and just how terrible a decision it was for her to make.

"Yes," came Mercury's solemn agreement. "Queen Serenity ordered us to finish the Dark Agency and their master on his world before it could spread to any others. Though it's unfortunate it should come to this, the eruptions have afforded us an opportunity to do just that. It is likely the planet will be made inhospitable in the process, and many more will lose their lives, but if it can prevent the deaths of millions more. . . ."

Her difficulty in saying such things that her nature was so against believing was obvious, so Zoisite finished for her: "The mechanisms are already in place to slowly choke the life from the planet. What we deal it is a merciful blow—a blow that will also seal the demise of the Dark Agency."

There were no further objections, just a dozen loyal commanders waiting for the order from Zoisite's ship and those of the sailor-soldiers. Sailor Venus was silent, but her silence spoke plenty for Zoisite. What he could not do right for Kunzite, he would at least do right for her.

"All ships, fire main cannons!" he said, and the upper atmosphere around the planet Venus was awash with a light that felt as brilliant as the sun—a light so bright even the dark beast writhing beneath could not blot it out, could not escape its blinding glare.

V.Kunzite

Only a select few of the Queen's most trusted accompanied her to meet the ship that had just arrived at the palace, fresh from its recovery mission to the devastated surface of Mars. No one else was to know of its presence there, nor of the precious cargo it carried, for she feared if word got out it might have disastrous effects on the already fragile morale of her people.

The solemn faces of its crew spread a deep numbness through her limbs, but her mind was focused as ever.

Two crystalline, capsule-like caskets were carried down the ship's ramp by uniformed attendants, and before the Queen they stopped for her inspection. Serenity bent her head and looked through the glass lids at each one in turn. The body of Sailor Uranus lay in one, Sailor Neptune's in the other. Princesses of the outer planets, guardians of the outer solar system, they were no less stately, no less mysterious in death than they had been in life.

"We found them huddled together amid the ashes," the captain of the ship told the Queen and her train gravely.

Serenity nodded her gratitude, while Pluto stepped forward for one last meeting with her fallen comrades. Her footsteps alone made a sound on the pavement; in her battle attire, which matched those of the two young women laid in the caskets, her long hair flowing around her without a veil to hide it, she had an intense grace in her bearing.

"They protected their bodies with the last of their energy," she said. Her dark, long-boned hand caressed one of the caskets fondly and briefly, as though through her touch the young women's last moments might be recorded into memory in her own mind. "Just as they were trained to do." It was harder still to tear her eyes away. "They were loyal to her majesty to the very end."

"And the talismans?" Serenity asked.

Luna looked up from the caskets to her. Her expression was unreadable, but Serenity could not help a pang of guilt. Do not look at me like that, she thought. It is not out of my heart that I ask that, but out of duty. I am not really so cold as that, am I?

"They are safe," the captain answered her, and as he did so he waved for another officer to come forward. The three women's attention was drawn immediately to the chest he carried. "As per your orders, your majesty, we kept them far from _her_. . . ."

His voice dropped in something like fear before he trailed off and looked warily over his shoulder, where down the ramp another passenger was disembarking. The passenger was a young woman no younger than Serenity's own daughter but far more frail of body. Even in the weaker gravity of the Moon she seemed constantly on the verge of collapsing under her own negligible weight. Bobbed, shoulder-length ebony hair framed a face as white as bone, and she still wore her royal robes, a gauzy black gown that floated about her like a burnt funereal shroud.

She looked about herself with large, dark-rimmed eyes as though uncertain of where she was and how she had come to be here—and perhaps, Serenity mused, she truthfully was. The last few months had been too much to take in for a girl of her disposition—a girl who barely understood why her appearance cast the square into such a dreadful and tense quiet. To these Moonmen, there could be no clearer omen of death than the Princess Saturn, stirred from her fortress of silence on Mimas and placed on their doorstep in this supposed time of peace.

"Very good." Serenity's voice broke the ominous silence and allayed her men's fears. She raised a hand magnanimously, forcing a smile on her lips. "I will see to it they are all well taken care of. Then I must urge you all to relax and partake of our hospitality, Captain. You have all just returned from a very long and very trying mission. Now is the time we must give thanks for our victory over the forces of darkness."

And count our losses, her heart was screaming to add. But that was the particular, and lonely, burden of the Moon Queen.

——

Eat, drink, and be merry, Queen Serenity had said. Rest your weary body and your weary soul and give thanks for what you still have, what so many were sacrificed to protect. Dance, and be thankful you are still alive.

Remember your comrades who gave their lives so that life might go on in the solar system—with reverence, but also with vigor. The darkness was defeated; light had prevailed, and its heavy price would not easily be forgotten. This was a new beginning for the Silver Millennium, but it could not afford to be cowed by the monumental, seemingly impossible tasks ahead. The solar system had been sparse of life once before, but the power of the Silver Imperium Crystal civilized it, and so it would once again, in time. Until then, all who remained were urged to partake of the greatness that had survived, and which would ultimately triumph. It was the glorious future they celebrated, and not the sorrows of the recent past.

It made Zoisite sick. Physically as well as mentally so; the Queen's urging toward merry-making in such a time as this nauseated him so that it was all he could do to abstain silently in his quarters. He did not care for her justifications. The Queen herself did not participate in these revelries she proclaimed to be so necessary—she probably could stomach them even less—so in that way was she not a hypocrite? Did the knowledge of how many she had sent to their deaths keep her awake like he was kept awake by his beloved comrades' last moments, by his foreseeable failures in the outer system that could have prevented them? By the memory of the planet Venus's innards boiling to its surface with the help of his own invention?

And how the planet itself had seemed to writhe in agony beneath him like a living thing. . . . Had she foreseen that in that holy tower of hers?

Maybe it was traitorous of him to think it now, but he could never quite quell the feeling of late that Endymion and his comrades had been somehow deceived. And he wondered if he could in fact believe Serenity's profession that she had simply—gravely—underestimated the pervasiveness of the dark power that had invaded the solar system and the hearts of its men and women. Could such a creature as she truly have been ignorant of its true nature?

On the other hand, it was hardly in the Queen's nature to willfully sacrifice her own people. Zoisite preferred to believe that above all he was a rational man, and the evidence would not allow him to think she could do such a thing. The other explanation, however, that all that had happened did so on account of failure, was no better comfort. If anything, it was worse.

Forgive me, Kunzite, Jadeite—Zoisite thought as he pressed his face into the pillow of a sofa, squeezing his eyes closed against tears that never came. If I had not been so trusting, so obedient—if I had followed my own instincts and opposed Serenity's decisions when we still had a chance to win on Mars and Jupiter—if I had just gone with you two. . . .

If he had done anything different, maybe they would still be here.

Eventually some sort of sleep must have come over Zoisite—he could not tell for how long in the lunar night—because something made him wake with a start.

He sat up on the sofa and looked around himself, but as far as he could see he was alone in the room. The curtains through which the balcony lay billowed in a light breeze, and beyond that the stars of deep twilight twinkled without any glass to obscure them: there had never been any need to fear assassins of thieves here.

Zoisite rose and silently went to check the balcony anyway. He hardly reached the threshold when he experienced an inexplicable feeling that someone was watching his movements from the shadows at his back.

He froze . . . then promptly told himself he was being a child. There was nothing there to fear. To prove his point he said, "Bunbo, what are you doing sneaking around this time of night?"

"Bunbo?" a disembodied voice repeated. It startled Zoisite, who had not actually expected an answer of any sort. "What, Zoisite, have you forgotten me already?"

That voice was intimately familiar to him, yet his rational mind told him there was no way he should be hearing it. That person was dead. He said simply, unwilling to delude himself with false hope: "Show yourself."

A shadowy figure of a man uncrossed his arms and legs, pushed himself away from the far wall, and walked toward Zoisite. Zoisite recognized the man's gait already, but he waited until a bar of Earthlight confirmed the man's identity before he allowed himself to believe it.

"Kunzite?" Zoisite breathed. He backed up a step instinctively, and his legs felt suddenly weak. "But I must be dreaming. . . ."

The next moment his feet were carrying him forward. But Kunzite recoiled before they could meet, his voice stopping Zoisite in his tracks. "Don't touch me!" It pained him to say it, however, so he said gentler, noting Zoisite's confusion, "Even if just to confirm it really is me. You'll just have to trust me, until I can collect myself. I've come a long way, flying for days in a rickety ship without sleep or food to reach you—"

"Of course." Zoisite nodded. "Sit down, then. Please. You must be exhausted."

Kunzite smiled. And to Zoisite he did look something like a dead man, as pale as a phantom in the wan light. There was no trace of the blood and dirt and soot that had marred his uniform and his face in his last transmission—nothing to dull the platinum luster of his attire and his hair and skin. He was radiant as moonlight itself—like a dream. He murmured, "_God_, but I'm glad to see you again," and he took the words right out of Zoisite's mouth.

Zoisite knelt down by his comrade's knee as Kunzite took a seat on the sofa, and the tears that had never quite made it to the surface before gathered within him again. "They told me you were dead," he all but whispered, afraid that if he spoke up this spell might be broken.

"Is that what you heard? As you can see it isn't true."

"But on Mars . . . Your last transmission—"

"I apologize, then," Kunzite said gently, "for leading you to think that I had perished in that mess."

"We couldn't help it, though. We were too busy fighting for our lives at the time."

Zoisite started and looked in the direction of the new voice, to see Jadeite standing in the doorway against the billowing curtains. At least, he recognized the voice as belonging to Jadeite, though the figure who peered into the room was backlit by the starlit sky and therefore Zoisite was unable to clearly make out his features—anything but an indistinct smile when he added, "Fear is a very powerful weapon, Zoisite. It can make people lose the civilization in themselves."

Zoisite looked back to Kunzite. "You both made it? But . . . I don't understand. How could this happen? The sandstorm tore everything apart. They said there were no bodies to even be found."

"Ah, but it wasn't a sandstorm," Jadeite said. "It wasn't any ordinary weather phenomenon. You saw it, didn't you? Like a huge black cloud, a shadow, swallowing up the entire world—"

"We were engulfed," Kunzite said. "But in the darkness we were saved from annihilation."

Jadeite glanced at him. "_She_ saved us, though we had given up on her."

"'She'?" Zoisite echoed.

The other raised an eyebrow. "Beryl."

He said it like Zoisite should have known.

Zoisite started. "Beryl?" He felt like a parrot, miming everything they said, but he just could not bring himself to believe it. "The same Beryl who served Prince Endymion with us on Earth? No. . . ." He shook his head. There simply was no evidence. "I don't see how she could . . . She was lost on Neptune months ago. What you're saying, it . . . It can't possibly be true. . . . Can it?"

Jadeite spread his hands. "And yet here _we_ are, all on account of her grace. She would not let her brethren fall to the enemy, even if we had not been quite so faithful to her in the past."

"But what was Beryl doing on Mars?"

Jadeite simply chuckled.

"Zoisite," Kunzite said solemnly, grabbing his attention once again. "When we were lost in that storm, and could not even see our hands in front of our faces, and when our troops gave up hope and fell upon one another in that darkness, it was Beryl who sheltered us from the chaos. She made sure nothing harmed us, because she knew how deep our love is for our master, for Endymion. She would not allow us to perish like so many others did on those plains—"

"If you had only seen what happened to the slain, Zoisite. The mutilated corpses, just littering the fields, just left out there in their own blood to be picked at by the crows. There was no rhyme or reason to the death, no dignity."

"The war made a monster of everyone. Soldiers turned on the men standing next to them, their own comrades, for no other reason than that there was no way one could know if that man on his right was going to kill him first." Kunzite slowly shook his head, and in the pale light his silver eyes were penetrating. "I envy you your campaigns in space, Zoisite, that you were never forced to dirty your hands in actual combat. It was a waking nightmare that consumed us."

Zoisite narrowed his eyes. "Yet you two alone made it out?"

At the nervousness in his tone, Jadeite stepped into the room and bent down beside his friend; and the wicked gleam in his searching eyes—so inescapably intimate, so intense and full of wonder—made Zoisite's heart, for a moment, leap.

"Not exactly. It's just like Kunzite said. The darkness took us, and in its fold we were saved."

Zoisite could only stare at him in horror as the meaning behind this revelation slowly sank in. Meanwhile, Kunzite's breath warmed his ear. "We almost died that day on Mars—and would have had Beryl not intervened on our behalf. Inside the darkness our wounds were healed and we were reborn. There we were given a chance to set right all of the Silver Millennium's failures, to start over. We were made a proposal we could not refuse."

Zoisite's eyes snapped back to him, and with a tenderness that made the young king's heart ache and his senses reel, Kunzite brushed a loose lock of hair back from his brow and behind his ear, his fingers gracing Zoisite's temple as lightly as a feather. How long it had been since Kunzite last touched him like that. . . .

"We came back here," he said, "because we could not leave you—and Nephrite and our Prince—without offering you the same opportunity that was afforded us."

"Shall we show him?" Jadeite said.

Kunzite's eyes left Zoisite's for a brief moment, in which they focused on Jadeite with a meaningful glance; and then Zoisite found his hand being taken and enfolded by those of his younger comrade, who brushed his lips across Zoisite's knuckles before slowly pulling him to his feet. He was still too much in shock to protest such an outward display of affection; and there was something too mesmerizing in Jadeite's stare and his slight smile to speak.

"Come with me," Jadeite said. His voice was dreamy, his tone lyrical, like he were reciting a poem. "I want you to see what wonderful things we have seen. You won't know how you ever truly existed in this world until the moment you genuinely feel it moving inside of you, throughout every inch of you."

"Inside of me?"

"This magnificent life force."

Jadeite's touch, the energy flowing through his limbs and his soft, white gloves, was like a warm wave pulsing through Zoisite's skin, through his bloodstream—like wine in his veins—seductive and impossible to refuse. Yet he managed to ask, "Where are you taking me, Jadeite? Just what are you planning to do with me?" After all, the doors that Jadeite seemed to be guiding him toward only led to Zoisite's bed chamber.

When he pushed them open, however, the reason for his boyish smirk became somewhat clearer.

The space beyond was not a bed chamber at all, let alone any sort of space Zoisite recognized. No cold Earthlight penetrated this place like it did the rest of his quarters, but rather the dark inside seemed to pulse with a warmer, more organic, phosphorescent light. Jadeite continued to pull him further into it, and Zoisite obeyed without thinking, looking around himself as though in a trance, searching for anything that might orient him and explain how this could be his room.

Across stone floors polished to glassy smoothness he strode slowly and in awe. It was warm wherever they were yet a chill ran down Zoisite's spine. Through the darkness he could see magnificent pillars stretching toward an indistinct ceiling; and though they were stark and monolithic, the same featureless charcoal color as the floor, they seemed nonetheless to writhe nebulously in the shadows with some sinister form of life—to tremble with some low-frequency heartbeat that Zoisite began to feel in his chest the longer he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

"What is this place?" he breathed, and was surprised by how quickly his words were swallowed up in the cavernous space.

It was Kunzite who answered him, his footfalls echoing at Zoisite's back, while Jadeite continued to relish his reaction.

"This," he said, "is Queen Beryl's kingdom. Her Dark Kingdom."

Jadeite dropped his hand, and with that Zoisite turned around. "_Queen_ Beryl's . . . ? Kunzite, what is this nonsense about Beryl being a queen? Where in God's good name are we?"

"Inside the proverbial belly of the beast. The Darkness that engulfed us all on Mars without any regard for what side we fought on—it is a sentient thing that came to this system to end our strifes once and for all. It chose Beryl on Neptune as the instrument of its plan of peace, and spared her from the ensuing violence that destroyed Triton."

Kunzite spoke of the Darkness with such reverence—the same black shadow that had caused Zoisite to know a fear he had never experienced before that, a fear of something even worse than death—that made the young man tremble before his friend. Had Kunzite gone mad—was this really him at all? How could he speak of that horrific thing with such love—like it were a god to be worshiped?

"I saw it die," Zoisite told him, and his voice shook. "That Darkness you speak of. . . ." This was nonsense, speaking of it like a living thing, and yet he could not help himself. A living thing was what it had felt like. "I killed it with my own hand, with my ships, on Venus. . . ." How could he be inside of it? "_I saw it die!_"

"What you witnessed on Venus was but a close call," Jadeite said. "The planet's eruptions and the fire from space nearly overwhelmed our Great Master, but she managed to escape into the sun."

"Great master. . . ." Zoisite echoed. His legs felt weak.

"Did we not tell you?" Kunzite said. "We serve a new master now. Oh, we are still and always will be faithful to Endymion," he elaborated at Zoisite's horrified expression, "but we must consider whom it is Endymion's duty to serve. Serenity is weak. She could not defend this system from the fear and hatred in men's hearts, and the destruction that wrought. The Silver Imperium Crystal is the law in this system no longer. I wonder if it ever truly was.

"But we have met one who is—whose power is eternal and encompasses all systems. We have pledged our lives to her, and in return she has given us great power like we never could have achieved on our own. Under the Moon Kingdom's control." He shook his head slightly, and smiled at some private thought, his eyes brilliant as they met Zoisite's through the darkness. "It is a power we can use to take back our world, Zoisite—even depose Serenity if we so wished, and who would say that this system would not be better off for it after all she has cost us?"

"You wouldn't disagree, I'm sure," Jadeite said. "If she had listened to your arguments earlier, you and I both know fewer lives would have been lost in the war. Surely the damage done would not have been nearly as severe."

Zoisite could not answer. Nor did he exactly have to. His comrades knew his heart well enough to know that was precisely how he felt about the Silver Millennium's failures. But coming from them in this strange, ecstatic state that was so unlike both of them, the logic sounded twisted, perverted.

"You don't have to answer," Jadeite said eventually. "You know we're right—"

"But none of that matters now!" The words forced themselves from deep within Zoisite, from a primal place within him that needed desperately to deny what they were telling him. "The war is over! This so-called Dark Kingdom. . . ." Now it clicked. "Its Dark Agency. . . . It was our enemy and we defeated it! All of that is history now!"

Jadeite grinned. "Haven't you been listening? Do you honestly think _we_ would deceive _you_, Zoisite?"

"She is merely in hibernation," Kunzite said matter-of-factly, "our Master. But do not fear. She will regain her strength in time. In the meanwhile, we must remain vigilant. Serenity would try to destroy her if she knew the Darkness was vulnerable."

He extended a hand before him in invitation, and the sudden motion caused his short cape to wave in the still air. "Now, if you please," he said, leading the way down the corridor, "follow me. Queen Beryl is eager to meet with you again."

The two led the way, but Zoisite staggered, and felt vaguely ill. This was all too surreal. His relief over his comrades' return from the dead had faded all too quickly into a disgust all the more bitter because he could not believe the men he loved so dearly were saying such unnatural things—speaking treason so openly, so . . . _proudly_. Did they not realize that they were serving the very enemy that had been dead-set against their existence? Perhaps they had no choice, he tried to convince himself. After all, what kind of being was it really that he had fought on Venus, to flee his ship's measly firepower for the protection of the roiling, nuclear furnace of the sun?

Just what was this master his comrades professed to serve?

It was when he swore the walls around him whispered his own name that Zoisite started out of his stare. He turned to retreat through the doors whence they had come and to the safety of his quarters' familiar sitting room, but the doors were gone. He could not find them. He ran wildly through the dark, aware that he was leaving Kunzite and Jadeite behind, but he had to find a way out of this place whether it was with or without them. He searched for anything that looked familiar, but all looked the same to him: alien. He had to be dreaming. This was a nightmare. There was no other plausible explanation for this place that defied the laws of time and space that he knew like the back of his hand; because there was no way they could have come this far already—there was no way they could have traveled here from his quarters simply by stepping over a threshold!

Yet some strange sense of logic that pervaded dreams told him that if he could just find the door through which they had come, he might wake to find this all a terrible nightmare, a delusion—a mere product of his grief, spurred by flashbacks from the final battle of the war, and he would find himself back in the Moon Palace mourning his fallen comrades all over again.

Somehow, now, even that agony was preferable to this.

At last he found himself face-to-face with a magnificent set of doors that he did not recognize. They towered over him like two giant monoliths, storeys high and black as night—no doubt as heavy as solid iron, and yet when he pushed them open they swung inward easily, with only the creaking of their jambs to indicate their massive weight.

Zoisite stumbled inward, his heart hammering painfully in his chest and his breath short; but the relief he felt was very short-lived indeed, for he had gone from the proverbial frying pan to the fire.

He got one glimpse of the chamber before him and froze.

Across the wide floor and lit by the flickering fires of tripods, there rose a tall staircase that stretched up toward an unknowable height like the stairs of a ziggurat reaching toward heaven, culminating in an empty altar. Behind it was nothing but a black void deeper than the void of deep space. It was this complete and utter absence of light that made Zoisite's breath freeze in his lungs.

A lone figure kneeled at the top of this pyramid, though it could not have been the only form of life in the room. As though alerted to his presence by that continuous murmuring from out of the walls, the figure rose from its submissive position. Then it turned, and even from his distance Zoisite recognized the shape of a tall, stately and voluptuous woman, as flowing in outline as a goddess from a Hindu frieze, as solid and straight as a caryatid in her tight gown. Long, dark red hair rippled like liquid fire over her shoulders, over the heavy jewelry that gripped her brow and throat like bony claws. As she stood facing him on that pinnacle, it was as though Kali herself were looming over him in judgment—that cruel mistress of divine mercy, whose emaciated and immolated body was bedecked with the skeletal remains of her victims.

But in contrast this living goddess had plenty of life yet in her rounded face and breasts and hips—in her full, blood-red lips and dark eyes. Caught in an intimate moment of self-subjugation, her exposed fair skin was slightly flushed; and at once Zoisite was stricken by the overwhelming urge to both adore and destroy this woman, she roused such a nameless fear in him he could not categorize.

Because he knew that he knew her, yet at the same time he did not recognize her at all.

He backed away, thinking that somehow if he escaped now she might forget having seen him, but he collided with something solid before he could get very far.

Zoisite gasped as Kunzite's arms wrapped around his chest and waist, holding Zoisite to him. He was caught. Yet through his panic and terror, the sensation of being against Kunzite once again made the younger man's mind reel. The press of Kunzite's hips against his backside, his breath still warm against Zoisite's ear and the side of his neck, held a strange seductive power that they simply should not have had under the circumstances. But there was also something dark in his energy that seeped into Zoisite osmotically, like a cold chill, that demanded he not give in so easily.

He shivered. A pathetic sound halfway between a moan and a whimper escaped him, echoing in the chamber, and he heard Jadeite laugh at him for it. As Zoisite's eyes focused on him, he struggled in Kunzite's grip, despite the latter's murmured entreaty to "Relax. We are all old friends here. No one wants to harm you."

By the severe look in the woman's eyes, however, as she picked up her staff and took the first step down the pyramid toward him, Zoisite had difficulty believing that.

"Forgive us, my Queen," Jadeite said to her, placing a hand over his chest and lowering his eyes in supplication. "I know we are not to disturb this holiest of chambers, but he did not know any better. He has not yet been initiated into Metallia's life force."

"Metallia. . . ." Zoisite breathed the name. "Is that what you call this . . . Is that who you serve now?"

Ignoring the derision in his voice, Jadeite followed his gaze to the woman descending the stairs. "It is," he said, and as he did so he smiled. "But she is too great to look upon directly. Only Queen Beryl has been allowed that honor. She is the conduit. She alone brings some sense to the whispers."

Queen Beryl. . . . So Zoisite's instincts had not been mistaken. The woman slowly approaching him who aroused in him such terror, she was the same one with whom they had exchanged witty banter and practice blows years ago in the Middle Kingdom.

But she had changed. What precisely, Zoisite could not but wonder with dread, had happened to her to make her this way?

"Let me go!" he hissed, then yelled at Kunzite, whose breath only grew heavier in his ear. "What's wrong with you all?"

"Wrong?" Jadeite said. The gently mocking smile that Zoisite had grown to love now looked alien on his face, under those eyes that glowed with such an unfamiliar light. "There is nothing wrong with us, Zoisite. We have seen the truth—our eyes have been opened—and if you only knew what a gloriously _powerful_ existence we have been living in these past weeks. . . ."

He trailed off, closing his eyes in ecstatic memory as he stepped gradually closer to Zoisite. When he opened them again they were full of a fire that pierced Zoisite like an arrow. "We want to share it with you."

Kunzite's voice rumbled in his ear, in his blood. "If you had salvation in the palm of your hand, you would not keep it to yourself either. You should feel what we are feeling right now."

"We want to save you from our old life and all its lies. Will you let us do that, Zoisite?"

As Jadeite spoke, the din that seemed to pulse from the very walls of the structure, that resonated in Zoisite's mind itself, swelled in tandem with his heartbeat and quickening breaths until it became a deafening drone. Jadeite reached out and caressed his jaw with one white-gloved hand. The softness of it prickled Zoisite's skin where it touched, and not unpleasantly. It made his vision swim; he lost his sense of what was up and what was down. It felt like his head would split from the pressure building within it around that drone, but he bit down on his lower lip to hold back a grunt of pain. You must not give them anything, he told himself, though a part of him already knew he was in a losing battle. Perhaps he was weak for it, but he could not fight his friends.

Zoisite tried once again to free himself from Kunzite's grasp. He dug his heels into the unyielding floor and twisted his body until his muscles strained; and still the other held him tighter, spreading his hands flat against Zoisite's chest, fingertips pressing into flesh with bruising force. Jadeite's joined his a second later, smotheringly hot and heavy, and together they subdued him as Beryl moved ever closer. They could not be his real comrades, Zoisite tried in vain to convince himself. The real Kunzite and Jadeite would never betray him like this.

Still there was a heart-breakingly minute amount of sympathy in Kunzite's words as he murmured into Zoisite's ear beneath the cacophony beating on his brain, "Please stop struggling. It won't hurt so much if you don't fight it."

Those words, and Beryl's blood-red lips, were the last things he remembered before he heard his own scream echoed back to him from the chamber walls. Then everything went black, like a heavy curtain falling over his mind.

* * *

End of Part Seven


	10. Part Eight

Part Eight

Zoisite woke to the chiming of his doorbell, and the senseless whispers of his dreaming faded into nothing. Throbbing pain, as though from too much drink the night before, dulled the edges of his consciousness as it had for days, but it was nothing he could not live with.

He pushed himself out of bed and walked toward the door with only a hand to his forehead to quell the temporary spell of dizziness and nausea that assailed him. He did not need to dress himself before he answered it; he found himself falling asleep in his clothes more and more often these days.

The door opened and busboys rushed into the room without any further invitation. For a moment Zoisite started at the intrusion, fearing that they had come to search his apartments, before the trays laden with food and silverware finally sank into his mind. He glanced around quickly just to make sure, but Kunzite and Jadeite were nowhere in sight. Maybe their being here was all a dream after all, he told himself, but even as he did so he remembered thinking the same thing the last time he woke up, and the time before that.

"What time is it?" he grumbled to no one in particular, as the busboys put down their trays and picked up old ones with half-eaten meals.

"It is two days and six hours until the first quarter."

Zoisite started at having received an answer and turned to the man who had spoken, a primly dressed servant whose duty it was to deliver him his meals. "Suppertime, if that is what you meant," he said not a little coolly. "You asked me to bring you your—"

"I remember, I remember." Zoisite turned his eyes. But in that case, he thought, how long have I been sleeping?

The busboys were quick about their work and left the room with the dirtied dishes in hand within moments; but the other man lingered. "Sir," he tried, "if you don't mind my saying so, you have kept yourself locked up in here for an awful long spell. Your friends are concerned for you. Shall I ring for a doctor?"

"No," Zoisite said quickly and finally. "There's no need for that." And what friends? he was tempted to ask, no one but these servants had bothered to call on him; but he knew the question would be callous and only garner more suspicion.

The servant was already scrutinizing him closer than Zoisite was comfortable with, and he longed to have the man out of his rooms immediately. "It's only that every time I come," he said as he stepped ahead of Zoisite to the door, "you say you don't have the stomach for it and yet you ask for more food to be brought to you; and every time I return, there is less for me to throw away."

"What are you trying to say?"

His impatience was not lost on the other man, who turned to face him when he had stepped back into the hall. "I'll be frank, Master Zoisite, but you don't look like you've been eating at all."

Zoisite just glared at him without answering, and slammed the door in his face.

He rested his arm against the door when it was closed and leaned his forehead against his wrist. The pressure in his head was subsiding, but he wondered how long he could keep this up. Already the servants were on to him; and whether they believed this half-truth about an illness or not, the story with all its holes was bound to make it back to Nephrite and Mercury eventually, if not Serenity. Though he had nothing to worry about from the boy, he suspected Bunbo probably knew the truth already. It was difficult to get anything by him, especially when he was being kept out of his own room for so long.

But Mercury. . . . How he longed to hear her voice again, soothing him with her calm logic. He tried to recall the last time he had spoken to her, looked upon her smiling face, felt her cool touch, but he could not. How long had it been since they had last spoken a word to each other outside of battle? God, but it felt like eons ago.

"M-m. . . . Braised roe deer medallions with glazed pears, asparagus and wild mushrooms in lobster sauce, stuffed peaches and duck soup with sweet yams, and nothing but the finest from the Moon Queen's vineyards, I'll wager."

The last words were slurred as Jadeite pulled a grape from a bowl of fruit and popped it into his mouth with one hand, while his other removed a silver lid from its tureen. For a brief second, the speed with which he had removed himself from the shadows to hover over the rich array of food made Zoisite uneasy. It was no dream after all; and he still could not say whether he wanted it to be, as Jadeite raised his eyes to him appreciatively. "Serenity spoils you even while Venus burns, does she?"

Zoisite just scowled at that and stomped past him. "Help yourself to whatever you want," he said, his voice wavering. "I don't care. Just eat it all."

"Aren't you going to have some?" The mirth of but a moment ago was gone from Jadeite's voice, replaced by a harsher, crueler edge that Zoisite never remembered. "You've hardly eaten anything in days."

Cabin fever and nothing more, Zoisite told himself. It was only natural they would get on one another's nerves eventually.

"I'm not hungry," he muttered.

"You have to have something." Crossing his arms over his chest, Kunzite leaned against the door frame of his bedroom.

"Some other time."

"You need to replenish your strength."

"My strength?" Those words stopped Zoisite in his pacing, and he looked up at his comrades with his frustration burning clearly in his eyes. "What an interesting choice of words to come from you," he spat. "And what of this great power I was supposed to feel, this wonderful energy? My head hasn't stopped pounding since you two came back from the dead!"

"Stop complaining," Jadeite told him with a sneer, "or shut up. You think you're the only one who feels that way? You think this is your pain and yours alone? Stop being so selfish. You made your bed; now lie in it."

But this wasn't how I wanted it to be, Zoisite wanted to say to him. I wanted you to be safe, to be alive, but not like this.

"Zoisite," Kunzite said, and the sympathetic tone of his voice for a short while assuaged Zoisite's troubles as effectively as though the other had lain a hand on his shoulder. "The right decision is never easy," he said. "You know that as well as I. But. . . ." He lowered his voice. "I am worried about Nephrite. He is deluded. He still clings to Serenity's lies. If anyone can show him the path to true righteousness, it's you. He listens to you like he would his own brother."

That was probably true, Zoisite conceded to himself, but he could not escape the feeling that he was being manipulated, and he did not like it. Even now he could hear the tiny voice inside his head whispering, this wouldn't be so bad if you just did as they say.

"Why don't you speak to him yourselves?" he said. "You don't know how hard he took the news of your deaths, though he would never let anyone see it. I know how relieved he would be to know you are both safe."

Kunzite was wincing even as he spoke, however. "Would that we could do that, Zoisite, but we. . . . We can't reveal our presence just yet. I know we cannot conceal ourselves within Serenity's own house without her knowing forever, but that is an ordeal with complications for which we are ready neither physically nor mentally." It seemed to Zoisite that putting off the inevitable would only make things worse, but he could not deny that a certain dread of the Queen's reaction had been partly to blame for his continued silence; so he could not argue against his comrade's logic when Kunzite said, "I beg you trust us, that when the time is right we will make our existence here known to the Queen."

_Trust us. . . ._ Zoisite turned the words over in his head. Like he had trusted them so many times before. . . .

Like he had followed them, trusting, into the mouth of Hell itself.

"I'll speak to him," he relented in a low voice, "but only because, as you say, he might listen to me better. Though there is no way to truly ease someone into the revelation that his comrades have returned from the dead. He'll only think I've lost my mind."

And that wouldn't be so far from the truth.

Kunzite smiled. "Thank you, Zoisite."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when Zoisite turned toward the door. "Leaving so soon?" Jadeite asked him, and persisted, "You really should eat something. You'll feel better if you do."

"I need some fresh air," Zoisite told them, trying to keep himself from trembling as he said so. "And some privacy to think about this task you've given me."

They let him go then without anything further, and Zoisite found the halls of the palace surprisingly still at this time of the lunar night so close to dawn. The feasts of the new moon were days ended, and only the refugees from the outer planets who huddled together in sleep in the temperate air of the open squares and wide colonnades told that there was any life in the city save for him and his two comrades. Occasionally one would glance up at him, a person as alien to this world and as displaced on it as they were, but he could find within himself no sympathy for them. He could not escape the conviction that they secretly envied and hated him under their demure glances, because though their bellies were full from Serenity's generosity and they were not lacking for warmth, _he_ still had a homeworld to return to.

That's right, a voice deep down inside him said, that is how they justify it. They may still treat me like a king of Earth, but inside they are suspicious of me for it, and would rather see me brought to their level. I would not be surprised if they were plotting some way to send us back to Earth in shame—

Stop it, Zoisite told himself, shaking his head. You are being paranoid. Can't you see how much these people have suffered under Serenity's war? They have more to worry themselves with than the Prince and his officers. They have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and with that their security and pride.

But—he could not help the thought—if I were in their place, wouldn't I want revenge on who put me where I am? He dreaded the answer, and so picked up his pace and left the refugees far behind him.

He walked quickly and aimlessly, as though with no other purpose than to escape the troublesome thoughts that pursued him relentlessly like a shadow. His meandering took him near the training grounds, where he and his comrades had once practiced swordplay and elemental manipulation with the noblemen and -women of the moon. But now the lunar city was sick of warfare, and the fencing halls were devoid of life, eerily dead without the ringing of metal against metal and the pattering of shoes against tiles to echo throughout the ruins of an even older annex that the city had grown up around. In the indigo sky through which wan Earthlight still shone, the massive stone slabs that sat fallen from some unimaginable grand hall of the primal past glowed with a faint translucence that made them seem as cold as blocks of ice; and even the dark patterns of vines draping across them here and there failed to evoke any of the glory the Silver Millennium had seemed to breathe every second only less than a year ago.

Zoisite could not say if it were some unconscious whim that had brought him here of all places; or if perhaps he had gotten it into his mind that he might still find Nephrite practicing with the sword to take his mind off the troubles of the passed war, like he used to so often do when a bothersome matter weighed on him. He might have gone to Nephrite's quarters to ask after him, Zoisite supposed, but that notion had not crossed his mind before now, while this place obviously had.

Then again, perhaps he had not been completely mistaken in coming.

A pattering of footsteps sounded to his left. Zoisite turned and strode quickly to the edge of a crumbling terrace, where he caught a glimpse of a figure moving behind the old pillars of a long-ago fallen colonnade. It was but a moment before he could make out the feminine yet athletic figure, the noble face surrounded by strawberry-brown waves, as belonging to Princess Jupiter. And her stride was long, her body focused forward with a purpose Zoisite could not guess.

Yet for reasons he could not understand, he resented her for it.

He followed her along the edge of the courtyard like he had once followed Nephrite as a boy along the edges of a jungle ruin, except that Jupiter did not see him until he called out, "Good morning, princess!"

She froze in mid-stride, her whole body tensing to be on guard, then snapped her head around to look up at him. Like a lioness on the hunt, she did not waste time looking around in fruitless directions, but the tension in her poise reminded him more of prey than predator. "Zoisite," she said when he crouched down to peer at her from the top of the wall, "I wish you would not do that. You gave me quite a fright."

A smile suddenly pulled at Zoisite's lips. "My apologies," he said. "A whimsical mood just took me all of a sudden; I don't know where it came from. It really wasn't my intention to startle you."

But, even as he said that, wasn't it a lie?

She ignored this and got right to the point. "Where have you been these past weeks?"

"Just a touch of fever." Which was not completely false. "But why should you care?"

"Why should I not? Nephrite has been worried sick about you, and Mercury—"

"Yes. How is Mercury, anyway?"

Jupiter narrowed her eyes at him. Something in the way he said her comrade's name did not seem to sit entirely well with her. "She is well. She fears you might be taking Kunzite and Jadeite's passing too hard—I mean, it has been hard on all of us, but she fears that your health might be suffering as a result of it. You haven't once left your room in the past ten days, or sent a single letter to her to assure her you are still among the living."

"And yet," Zoisite said with sudden coldness, "she hasn't tried to call on me once in all that time, either."

"And you would fault her for that? You were not there with her. You don't know how she agonized over her decision to grant you your privacy."

"Perhaps you're right, princess. I cannot imagine what love would let her allow me to wallow in my grief so completely and utterly alone."

What had been merely a vague wariness in Jupiter's expression changed quickly to disgust. "I can't believe you. . . . Here I am trying to offer you some perspective, some genuine understanding, and you just sit up there and insult my dear friend who is practically my sister—who loves you hopelessly, in case you needed to be reminded. . . ." Zoisite laughed at that, and she turned away from him. "The gods only know why she feels that way, but I refuse to just stand here and take any more of this nonsense from you. Good day, Master Zoisite."

She went to leave him, but he leaped down from the wall then and barred her way. Yet instead of retreating to go in another direction, as any lesser woman might have done, Jupiter stood her ground. "Let me pass, Zoisite."

"I don't know," he said. "Where is it you're going in such a hurry?"

"Wherever it is, it's none of your concern."

"Well, that would depend, wouldn't it? Are you going to see Nephrite?" At her indignant look, he explained, "I have some urgent things to discuss with him."

"Then perhaps I can relay a message next time I see him."

Zoisite slowly shook his head. "I'm afraid they're matters we must address in private, and three would be a crowd. But I don't need to explain that to you, do I, princess?"

Anger flashed across Jupiter's eyes like a bolt of lightning. "If I knew Nephrite didn't think so highly of you," she said, "I'd have half a mind to . . ."

"Do what?" Again Zoisite chuckled, not unlike Jadeite had that night he came back. "Don't let our mutual friendship stop you. I'd enjoy the challenge. Serenity never permitted us to spar with the Princess's guardians, but after what I've seen on the battlefield I know it isn't because she doubts your abilities to give your opponents a good thrashing."

Jupiter's hands clenched into fists at her side, but she refused to raise them. "What is the point of all this?"

"Who said anything about a point?"

"You're just trying to provoke me, and for what purpose I wish I knew. This isn't like you at all. Haven't you had enough of hatred and fighting for one lifetime?"

"Perhaps you don't know me as well as you thought." Zoisite heaved a great sigh and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm just curious, is all, why after all the things I've said that must have offended you, you won't do anything to defend your honor. If it were Nephrite, he would have challenged me to a duel over it, yet you just stand there and take it. Isn't that just like your sex, just like your Princess who sits around worrying about the state of things and doing nothing. But I thought you at least were made of stronger stuff than that, Jupiter."

Her lips twitched as she continued to stare him down, and Zoisite could feel the static building in the air around them in his clothes and hair clinging to his body.

But just as quickly, it passed, and Jupiter pushed past him, hitting his shoulder with hers. "Then I guess I'm just the same as the rest of my sex, as you say, after all," she said through gritted teeth. "Or maybe it's a simple matter of civilization. In either case, at least we do not take out our petty grievances on our friends, and expect to be paid in blood for our offenses."

A snarl pulled at Zoisite's own mouth as she said so. Her words angered him deeper than he would have thought possible, melding with the outrage he felt every minute of every day over Serenity's inherent weakness and the failures it brought. He hated that weakness so much it made him turn to Jupiter in spite as she strode away, the moisture in the air instinctively condensing in tandem with his emotions, and shout to her, "Did I say you could walk away, princess?"

She turned her head and her eyes widened in shock. Because as he spoke, needles of ice shot toward her as if his words themselves had been transformed into physical weapons, hurling toward her faster than she had time to react.

At the last moment something collided with the needles of ice and they shattered into a thousand sparkling crystals. Jupiter's hair and the fabric of her clothes whipped around her as she stood stunned by the close call, but for only a moment. The next she had called upon the lightning and thunder that was her element and sent a bolt of it into the ground, tearing up the ancient tiles under Zoisite's feet.

It was a defensive gesture, designed to give her the opportunity to flee from him, but suddenly, for reasons he could not explain, Zoisite only knew that he could not allow her to do so. It was as if a gauntlet had been thrown down, and even if it had been done so unwittingly he could not leave matters as they were. He leaped away and ran after Jupiter, knowing unconsciously the fastest course to intercepting her; and when he had his hand around her wrist she turned in his grip, her eyes wild not with fear but with the disbelieving fury of betrayal. As though what she had thought was a warm light in his countenance all this time was revealed to be nothing but a cold reflection in the mirror, a fake, and seeing it finally for what it was outraged her.

She turned and grappled with him to free herself, and she was stronger than Zoisite had prepared himself for; but he held fast, with a sort of madman's irrational strength himself. He could feel the charge in her touch as they stumbled across the broken courtyard, breaths ragged from panic and effort, and knew that she in turn was feeling his cold. He could not control it, but he could see the sweat on the inside of her wrist turning to frost, and knew by the knit in her brow how it burned her flesh like she burned him.

But he could not let go. The darkness coiled within him would not let him.

Jupiter screamed, and something collided with Zoisite that finally made him relinquish his grip on her as he stumbled back, stars before his eyes. "Bitch—" he spat and surged forward again, determined to make her pay for it, but came up short and blinked when he saw Nephrite staring back at him instead of the young woman, the tip of his sheathed sword pressing into Zoisite's diaphragm to stop him.

"Nephrite—" he choked.

His comrade's eyes were as wide and confused as his were. "What the hell are you doing?" he said. "Get out of here, Zoisite, before you make your situation any worse."

"_My_ situation?" Zoisite glanced between him and Jupiter, who still stared in shock over Nephrite's shoulder, rubbing the warmth back into her wrist. Just the sight of her stirred the anger within him back to the surface. "You'd defend her over me—your own brother?" Zoisite looked back to him, his eyes wild. "It was she who started this. Nephrite, can't you see how she's deceived you!"

The other just stared back at him. "Listen to yourself! Zoisite, what's gotten into you? Have you gone completely mad?"

"Either I have or the whole world is mad!" Zoisite moved side to side to try and escape him, but Nephrite barred his way with the sword, so that Zoisite had to yell over his shoulder, "They're killing us here! Can't you see that? The rich food, the wine—it's all Serenity's design to lull you and Endymion into a false sense of peace, like pigs fattened for the table! They would take our kingdom away from us just to have it all to themselves! That's what they've been after from the start!" He pulled and pushed at the scabbard of the sword that crossed his chest and restrained him, desperate to escape it, not caring if he sounded like a madman. "Even now you're doing her bidding—she's turned you against me. Through your precious Jupiter here, she's turned you against us, and you're too blind to even recognize it!"

Nephrite flinched from him like one might a leper. "What are you talking about?"

It was all the leeway Zoisite needed. He pulled the scabbard from the sword and slipped under Nephrite's arm, wielding it like a true weapon. It was all the weapon he had but for the cold that ran through him, the darkness that pounded on his brain until it felt like he would explode from the pressure. "What have I ever done to you?" Jupiter yelled as he came toward her, stepping back, loath to fight him even now after all that he had said and done.

But she did not realize. She had not been awakened to the truth like he had. She was part of the problem, that voice inside told him, and if Zoisite eliminated her now then maybe this would all be over, and the agony raging through his insides might finally cease and he would be free. _They_ would be free, he and Nephrite, like they were back in India, before they ever met the Moon Queen or spacemen—before they ever saw for themselves the cold, indifferent vacuum of space, surrounding them absolutely, whole planets littered indiscriminately with the mangled bodies of the dead and there was no god to care—and that face that peered into his very soul from out of a rip in the fabric of normal space, that laughed at it all as their worlds crumbled—

A scream echoed off the walls of the ruined courtyard, and Zoisite could not tell if it had come from himself or Nephrite or Jupiter. Only that the next moment, the sharpest pain lanced through the right side of his body and his breath was forced from his lungs.

The darkness cleared from his eyes and he saw Nephrite staring at him in horror. His arms were raised, and in his hand was the grip of his sword, the tip of its long blade buried in Zoisite's right shoulder, pinning him to the wall.

Instinctively his body remembered to breathe, and with the rush of air to his lungs came a wave of pain so strong and so utterly, indescribably corporeal that a sound escaped his throat Zoisite had never heard before, so full was it with an anguish he had not felt in over a decade.

Nephrite came to his senses and pulled out the blade. He backed away and it fell from his fingers as though it had burned him, falling on the stone with a clang so sharp it pierced their eardrums. Then Zoisite's legs failed him, and he stumbled against the wall, his left hand going automatically to his shoulder to staunch this new and alien sensation: the feel of his own blood pouring hot and thick out of his body. He had been nicked and bruised in the past, inflicted so many like wounds on his enemies, but this sensation was new and frightening to him. Was this what it felt like, he wondered, to die?

"Zoisite. . . ." Nephrite's voice reached him from out of the fog of his pain. His mouth worked to find something to say, anything really, but nothing came out but a strangled, "I. . . ."

"What's going on here?"

Kunzite's voice rang across the square, and even as it comforted Zoisite, he watched Nephrite pale at the recognition. Jupiter came to his side, and it seemed as though she were the only force keeping Nephrite on his feet when he saw the man whom he had thought dead stride into the light, as casually as though none of the past few months had happened.

Kunzite glanced coolly at the fallen sword, then turned his gaze slowly to Nephrite. "Zoisite," he said, however, clucking his tongue, "what did you do now?"

Zoisite could hardly believe his ears. He was gravely wounded, by the hand of one of their own no less, and Kunzite's first instinct was to blame him? He opened his mouth to defend himself, but the hand that was suddenly pressed to his wound, making his vision swim, and the arm that snaked about his shoulders, killed the words on his lips. "Looks like he missed any major arteries," Jadeite cooed at his ear. "Boy, it must hurt like the devil, but at least you'll live." He did not laugh, but Zoisite had the feeling, from his tone of voice, that he would have liked to. "We can't leave you two in the same place for one minute, can we?"

"Get a bandage on that wound," the other said dismissively, hardly turning his head in Zoisite's direction.

"Kunzite . . ." Nephrite breathed, "what is the meaning of this? Why are you . . . You both should be dead!"

As he and Jupiter watched, as though waiting for him to prove an illusion and disappear, Kunzite slowly shook his head. "This isn't the way I wanted it to happen," he said. "But I guess there is no easy way to fix this one. It would have come out in the open sooner or later, but I was hoping there was at least some way the truth might be broken to you more gently than this, Nephrite. And for that . . . I hope you can forgive me."

He took a step toward his fellow officer and comrade, extending a hand that went unshook. Yet even then he ignored the slight, a compassionate smile planted firmly on his lips. "It's been long enough already, my old friend."

——

Never had the formal uniforms of the Prince of Earth's entourage been worn with such shame. Yet as the four guardians stood behind their Prince in shimmering white silk and gold piping, bronze short-capes tossed over their shoulders, the stern expressions on their faces cut them rather incongruous figures. Kunzite alone retained some humility in his posture and gaze, as though in embarrassment for his master before the assembled nobles and the princesses they had once been so carefree with; but that did not stop Endymion from showing his displeasure with his officers, and the trouble into which they had landed themselves.

Which was at least more than could be said for Zoisite and Nephrite—the former of whom was fuming and both were refusing to look at one another—and Jadeite, who simply looked pathetic.

Because there was no one here, in Queen Serenity's court, who could find it in himself to give the four their sympathy any longer.

"I can hardly find the words to express how deeply shocked I am by your behavior," said the Queen herself. After all that had happened she did not waste words on them, but the disappointment in her voice was more scathing than the most creative criticism, as heavy as a stone weight on the accuseds' shoulders.

There were new faces beside the Queen's dais now. Artemis and Luna had taken their places at her right hand as her closest advisors, the last of their kind to be left by the scourge of war in the solar system; and standing apart from the Princess's guardians on the Queen's left, kneeling in stillness like a dark shadow, was Sailor Pluto, clutching her staff with eyes downcast as though absorbing every word that reverberated in the chamber, every nuance that rang within it.

Serenity herself exuded as always the fragile symmetry of a snowflake, like the faerie queen of legend in her gravity-defying gossamer gown; but there was a new sharpness to her words as she admonished the five kneeling before her throne—as though, like an icicle, she might break, but also cut in the process. "Shocked," she emphasized, the word becoming a whip on her tongue, "and wounded, to think that Prince Endymion's men would lower themselves to acting so foolishly and reprehensibly—within my palace's walls no less, after all the freedoms I granted you here. That you would be so reckless in this time when we have worked so hard to gain peace. . . . Stomping upon my trust and hospitality, and embroiling those under my care in your petty squabbles. . . ."

Nephrite flushed as her gaze turned to him.

"If it weren't for Master Nephrite's quick thinking, Sailor Jupiter. . . ." The Queen took a ragged breath. "I hate to think what might have happened to her."

Zoisite fought hard to suppress the snarl of resentment that threatened to pull at his lips. He regretted his impulses enough as it was; did she need to torment him further like this when he was already so ashamed, so humbled by the sling that shone like a beacon to his temper beneath his cape?

Endymion bowed his head still lower before Serenity as he said, "Your majesty, once again I offer my deepest apologies for my officers' behavior. I don't know what got into Zoisite, and what Nephrite did to—"

"Please, Endymion, I do not wish to hear you make excuses for them." Serenity's gaze softened as it met his raised eyes, however. "Though I do appreciate the gesture, the damage has already been done."

"Queen Serenity," Kunzite spoke up, and for once the calming voice of reason he raised seemed to startle the Queen and her advisors as though a serpent had suddenly appeared before her dais. "If you ever listened to me before, please hear me out now. It would seem the fault lies squarely with Zoisite. He has carried such a weight on his shoulders with the charge of the Silver Millennium's navy these last few months of the war, it seems the stress must have finally been too much for even him to handle. And though it is regrettable what he did, and, yes, it worries us all to think of what might have happened, in the end he was the only one injured by his actions. Can I suggest some way he might be able to make up this . . . momentary lapse of judgment to her highness?"

Zoisite shot a glare at his comrade, surprised that Kunzite would betray him so readily, but it was short-lived.

"You most certainly may not," the Queen said. "I will decide who or what was injured by his 'lapse of judgment,' as you call it.

"And furthermore, the trust that I once had for you, Master Kunzite," she continued, uttering the title like it left a bitter taste in her mouth, "I am sorry to say has been tested of late by your own actions. We all believed you and Master Jadeite to have been slain in the Battle of Mars and until now you have not made a single effort to contact the Moon Palace, knowing what a difference that knowledge, to say nothing of your assistance, could have made in turning the tides of battle—"

"We were not able to make contact in space, your majesty—"

"From within the Moon Palace itself, then! Is it not true that you have been living in Master Zoisite's apartments here in the Palace for the last fortnight without alerting a single soul? Which in turn causes one to wonder why Master Zoisite felt the need to _hide_ the two of you from us."

"Is recuperating a crime now?" Jadeite said. "What did we do to deserve this cruelty, your majesty?"

"Your majesty," Kunzite cut him off, entreatingly, "we were not ready to announce our presence. Don't you see that the sheer fact that everyone believed us to be dead made it all the more difficult for us to essentially come back from it? We were thinking of the emotional stress of revealing that news—both on us, who had just returned to civilization after suffering the horrors of Mars, and on those who had mourned us." He gestured to his comrade. "Look what it did to Zoisite."

"And yet by your own logic," said the Queen, "it would seem that the presence of Earthmen on the Moon is no longer a healthy one for either party."

Several voices sounded at once to refute such a bold claim or to question what she meant, but the hand that Serenity held up quieted them so that she might go on to explain herself.

"There has been no shortage of xenophobia circulating between our kingdoms in the last months. Even with the invader that threatened order in the system gone, still the good-will and trust that once existed in men's hearts has suffered a terrible blow in this war that may take generations to heal. We have lost so many souls already; must those who survived the destruction of their worlds continue to be subjected to these abuses? The answer is a resounding no. In such a time more than ever I must call for transparency; in such a time more than ever I cannot afford to coddle in my own house, under the same roof as my daughter, visitors who conceal their activities beneath a veil of suspicion, jealousy and secrecy.

"Which is why," she went on with the slightest gesture to Artemis and Luna at her side, "I am forced by present circumstances, for the safe-guarding of my own kingdom, to take the drastic measure of banning any citizen of Earth from stepping foot on the Moon, including the Prince and his officers, until such time as they have proven without a doubt that they can be trusted again as they once were, even if it takes centuries to do so. I do not make this decision lightly; however, your actions of late have pushed my hand to where I have no choice but to institute such a ban for the safety of my own people."

The audience had already erupted into another uproar at her pronouncement, so that the Queen had to struggle to make her last point known above the din. "Mother, what you're saying. . . ." The Princess shook her head violently, her hair spilling like spun gold over her slender shoulders. "Please, take it back! Or at least do not punish Endymion. He has done nothing wrong!"

"Selena—" the Prince uttered in a voice so low perhaps only his officers behind him heard it, but the pain in his raised eyes spoke volumes as he silently entreated her to stop; she would only make the sentence harder.

Refusing to accept his wordless plea, the Princess rose to her feet. "Please, Serenity, be still," the Queen told her with a sideways glance.

"I will not!" said the girl. "I cannot sit by in silence any longer. Mother, do what you will but do not banish _him_! If you do I shall never speak to you again!"

"Serenity, do not be foolish. Remember you are _my_ daughter and do not let your emotions cloud your judgment—"

"No!" The girl was adamant. "I will not abide this, Mother! I won't!" And with that she turned to flee the room, her diaphanous skirts and the faint sparkle of tears whirling around her.

"Princess!" her guardians called after her, all in their own turn; and Mercury and Mars, with apologetic glances at their Queen, excused themselves to chase after her.

The Queen let out an inaudible sigh. "Please forgive my daughter," she said, the short-lived warmth of her words and gaze reserved for Endymion alone. "She is still young and headstrong and does not yet understand that the nature of her position often necessitates such unpleasant measures."

"I can't pretend I don't share her feelings," the Prince said with a solemn restraint that must have been more difficult for him than his tone let on, "but I do understand why your majesty does this thing. I only wish with all my heart that I could undo the last week—the last year, even—if it would keep us still in your highness's good graces."

Behind him Jadeite bit his tongue, and Zoisite let out a quiet snort that told plainly enough his thoughts on the matter. Kunzite alone had to repress a pained smirk.

It was for their sake that the gentle manner the Queen exhibited toward Endymion evaporated.

"It is decided," she said. "Effective immediately, the Prince and his guardians shall be assigned an escort during the remainder of their stay in the Moon Kingdom, until such time as the next ship can return them and their countrymen to Earth. Until then all of their activities and movements within the Capital shall be supervised, and they shall be allowed absolutely no unauthorized contact with my daughter the Princess, or her guardians."

I.Earthrise

When they were finally alone in the throne room, Serenity let out a sigh and held her temple. The encounter with the Prince and his men appeared to have drained her physically as well as mentally, though Artemis could not be certain if it was on account of pity for the Prince, or her lack thereof for his guardians.

"I don't remember that Kunzite having such a slippery tongue," he heard her say under her breath.

"My Queen?"

She turned her silver head slightly in his direction. "I cannot put my finger on it, Artemis, and I did not want to mention it in front of the Earthmen lest my words cut too close to the truth, but nonetheless something has been changed in Kunzite and his companions since their return. Perhaps it is nothing more than the horrors of battle—who would escape them completely unscathed?—but I cannot escape the feeling that the Kunzite and Jadeite who came out of the blackness that surrounded Mars were not the same ones that went in."

"What does it matter?" the other asked. "That darkness was defeated. And it was the other two who had the quarrel."

"And perhaps I should not be surprised," the Queen went on aloud to herself, "that the apple does not fall far from the tree. From what I recall of Zoisite's mother, she was always a headstrong woman, even before she knew she would marry an Earth king, and Nephrite's father was no less stubborn than his son turned out. How many noble souls, over all the generations of spacemen, have been sentenced to early graves for the ephemeral dreams of that jewel of a planet, whose kingdoms like the hottest flames burn too bright too fast?"

Artemis had to admit he was lost by this newest turn in the conversation. Was it a memory from the centuries before when he was no more than a young kitten, or perhaps from her own distant childhood, long before he was born, that she spoke of now in such nostalgic tones? How many empires had risen to greatness and been snuffed out like that candle she spoke of, winking like stars out of the vastness of existence without but a trace of their former glory, in the long lifetime of such immortal beings?

"And perhaps no one bears more responsibility for these developments than myself," the Queen spoke again, stirring Artemis from his thoughts.

"No," he said automatically, shaking his head. "Your majesty did all she could."

"Did I?"

He stared at her then, no words coming to his lips.

"I wonder if I have not been too soft and weak in my handling of the darkness, of the war. Opportunities that might have saved a million lives were missed, squandered, because I could not abide deciding whom to sacrifice for the good of others—who should die so that others might live. Even if such decisions were my responsibility, my sacred duty. Do I not bear responsibility for their resentment now for not doing as much as I could? And yet I fear, as I did then, that achieving justice and order would mean giving up the very goodness of spirit in which we believe, and for which we were fighting."

"I assure you, my Queen," Pluto spoke up from her long silence, "that where you see weakness I see strength and righteousness. The enemy we fought was one that knew no reason or order. It was Chaos itself, the antithesis to all the Silver Imperium Crystal stands for, and therefor goodness was our greatest weapon against it. In the face of such an enemy, faith in the goodness in the human heart is the one thing worth holding on to more than anything else. More than any superweapons and firepower; more than brute strength. If you sacrificed your principle for an order of tyranny, you would have accomplished less than nothing."

"But what is the penalty for choosing such a path?" Serenity asked her. "Is principle, no matter how noble, worth so many deaths? Is it worth the risk of total annihilation?"

"We were not annihilated," Pluto reminded her.

"No," the Queen agreed solemnly, with regret. "No, we were not. But we almost were."

——

There had not been a moment to speak to one another alone. The Queen's guard made sure of that. Now the letter Zoisite continued to turn over in his fingers, and the memory of Mercury's humorless, downcast eyes—she could barely even meet his except to open her mouth to speak to him and come up with nothing under the escorts' watchful gazes—were all he was allowed of her now to console himself aboard the ship bound for Earth.

He recalled how it had made its way into his hands. Once upon a more carefree time, she might have sneaked such personal correspondence into a flower arrangement when she knew he was watching, or passed it to him by foot underneath the table.

Now he was given it by hand in exchange for the books he had borrowed, by a Rikokeider who alone among the palace staff seemed sympathetic to the company of Earthmen—even if Zoisite were not exactly included in those sympathies. Perhaps that was a part of why he dreaded breaking the seal; he could not expect the same sweet promises of old and dreamy observations on the cosmos with a hand-off like that.

But he broke the seal nonetheless, with shaking fingers all too eager. There was no perfume to waft up when he brusquely shook open the piece of paper, only the fragrance of ink and paper, but it was that which recalled for him her visage more than any other scent.

It made it that much harder for him to believe the words that were written there; but he had to read them, as though each word, each phrase was a jewel he gathered to his heart. Even if they would tear it apart.

Mercury did not mince words on introductions. "My time to get a message to you is running short," she wrote, in the same quick scrawl with which she might have written down a note of some point in their more intellectual conversations for future reference:

_If there is but one thing I can say to you before you return to Earth, let it be this. I do not pretend to understand your reasons for attacking Jupiter, who is like my sister, like you did, and even though I sympathize with your choices regarding your comrades, surely you must also be aware of how they would seem to outsiders. _

_The fact is, I do not understand, but I cannot find it within myself to blame you either. You have not been yourself for months. The fighting in space has taxed us all beyond measure; what happened between you and Jupiter the other day is proof of that. I sensed years ago that there was a desperation inside of you which I could not touch, but I wonder now, if I had done more to try and reach it, would things have turned out differently? Would you still be here with me, laughing by the side of the Sea? _

_Or has the war put an end to all of that for good? _

_Perhaps it is illogical of me to do so, but we cannot be creatures of logic in all things. I do so much want to believe in you, in the goodness that you once showed me. My love for you even now makes me want to believe. I want to believe that that goodness will triumph over your darkness once again and that when it does even Queen Serenity will have to see it. Forgive me that I did not have the strength to say these things before, that they had to be written down, but I beg you: take them to heart. If you still feel for me even a fraction of what you once did, keep these things in your heart always. _

_Until such time as we can meet again,  
Your dear friend._

A laugh escaped Zoisite that he did not know had been within him, and the feeling of expelling it was like a blow to the gut. After all they had been through, "your dear friend" was all she could say? That she was _sorry_ for her continued feelings for him—and he was supposed to forgive her these apologies? Believe such cowardly words like she supposedly believed in him?

"This is what you've come to expect all along," he whispered to himself. "I don't know why you're so surprised now." How like Mercury this pity was, this gesture, this half-measure, but he could no longer delude himself into thinking he did not resent it.

His fingers were clutching the paper so hard it wrinkled beneath them. He forced himself to relax his hold, and to quell the anger that he could feel building within him. As much as he resented her words, he could wish no harm to ever come to Mercury. It was enough that he had harmed this letter that bore her handwriting, her coolly rational feelings twice removed from their source by her cursive and the pen.

He leaned back in the padded chair, wishing to sink into the vibrations of the ship's engines that reverberated throughout every furnishing within it. Thinking wistfully that maybe deep down within that thrum, that thrum which was so like his heart of five years ago, he might be reunited with that time when Mercury was more precious to him than any jewel, than any theory or nation or principle. When she was more precious to him than life itself.

How difficult that proved to find. How quickly it slipped from his reaching fingers, retreating back into the darkness of space that surrounded him.

——

When Luna entered the Princess' chambers, a tray carrying a silver tea set in her hands, she was startled to find the girl lying prostrate on her bed. Setting down the tray in a hurry, she rushed to the girl's side.

"My Princess," she began, taking the girl's shoulders, which trembled terribly as she sobbed into the bedsheets, in her hands. Serenity raised her head, her lovely eyes red with the tears that streamed down her face. "Selena," Luna said to her tenderly, "my dear girl, whatever is the matter?"

The Princess wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. "It's Endymion," she sobbed. "He is gone to Earth and my mother has forbidden me to see him!"

"There, there. I know. I was there, remember?" said Luna in understanding. Her heart went out to the girl. She could only imagine what agony wracked her heart. "But," Luna tried to cheer her up, "the distance has never stopped you from seeing each other before."

"No, you don't understand!" The Princess shook her head violently. "There are guards ordered to arrest him on sight if he tries to come here, and every communication made to Earth is closely monitored. I cannot call on him, I cannot send him a message, and he cannot send one to me! Luna, I am sick with it. What am I to do if I cannot see his face, hear his voice ever again?"

"You will see him again," Luna said, though the words sounded hollow to her own ears. "And until that time you will get by. Even if it seems impossible now, you will find a way. I know it. You possess your mother's strength of spirit."

"I shall run away."

Luna started. But the girl had suddenly stopped her sniffling, her voice firm though the tears still ran down her cheeks. "You cannot be serious, Princess. Have you any idea how dangerous that is? What the Earthmen might do to you—what could happen to you in space! You are too precious to your people to play so recklessly with your own welfare. You must remember that!"

"I do not care!" The Princess's eyes were wide and blue as the gibbous Earth hanging in the sky as they fixed on Luna. "I know I am forbidden to leave the Palace, but I will find a way to do it. I must! —And you must help me, Luna!"

"Oh, Princess. . . . Do not bring me into such a foolish scheme."

I beg you, Luna prayed, because I doubt my ability to deny you even that.

Then the futility of it hit the girl full force, and she visibly crumpled before the alien woman. "Oh, Luna, I don't understand why she would do this! I thought Mother loved Endymion. Why—why would she turn against him so?"

Luna opened her mouth to say it was because of those who surrounded the Prince, because of the choices they had made, but the girl was not dense. Nor was that the only reason; it was only the most obvious. A warning came to Luna then from out of the past, even as the secret was ready to burst from her lips—what the Queen had said to her years ago:

My daughter must never find out, under any circumstances, that she and Endymion share the same father. It would destroy them both, and I cannot do that to my own flesh and blood.

I will keep that secret, my Queen, Luna said in her heart as she closed her eyes, and not betray you.

Taking a deep breath and opening her eyes, she said instead, "It isn't that, Princess. She hasn't lost her affection for him. But the situation on Earth has become unstable. Please try to accept that. Right now it is difficult to know whom from that planet to trust. No one is free from suspicion, not even the Prince."

"But he has done nothing!" the girl sobbed anew. "He is completely devoted to me and my mother. Can't she see that? Doesn't she know how she is breaking my heart? It is killing me, Luna! Can't you see?"

Unable to say another word lest the girl see her own tears of sympathy that threatened to overflow, Luna seized the Princess and pulled her to her breast. Of course she knows, she wanted to tell the Princess who now appeared all the innocent adolescent girl she was. Every one of us that is close to you knows, and it breaks our hearts as well.

But what you must understand is that we are also afraid.

——

Her encounter with the Princess Serenity left Luna spent, as though the girl's own troubles had seeped into her skin and become her own. Her weariness must have shown visibly on her face or in the way she carried herself, for when Artemis noticed her presence and turned around, worry automatically widened his eyes and he stood, saying with alarm, "Are you all right?"

"Myself? Yes," she breathed, her shoulders slumping. "It is the Princess who is not. What are we to do about this Earthman matter, Artemis? I am afraid the heartbreak of being separated from the one she loves will kill her, to speak nothing of how their manner has changed toward us Moonpeople."

Artemis did not respond for a moment, only chewed his lower lip and knitted his brows in thought. He turned to look out the tall windows to the silver mountains on the horizon when he spoke.

"I've been thinking, Luna," he said absently. "What if that thing that we saw swallowing the planet Mars. . . . What if it was responsible for what happened to Mau?"

He paused a moment for her to respond, but she could not. What does this have to do with the Earthman situation? she wanted to ask, but it struck her sooner rather than later that Artemis had not changed the subject on her like she had thought.

"Remember when we were children," he went on, "the stories Thoth and the others used to tell us about when our people left their world? They said a great darkness came, like an eternal night, and covered the entire planet; and it didn't let any light through, so that the plants withered and the animals died, and the cities froze on the barren land. Then, when it had taken all it could from the planet, it went into the sun. . . ."

He squinted into the distance as though grasping for some crucial missing piece, but when he could not find it he looked down.

"And that was when our ancestors left their world and scattered themselves throughout the stars, never to return. Do you think the thing that did that could be the same darkness that's caused all this trouble for us? Do you think it could have been responsible for that nova five years ago? Luna, that nova. . . ." He turned to her, and now she knew what he had been looking for against the lunar morning sky. "Wasn't it in the same place they used to tell us to look when we asked about our homeworld?"

——

Zoisite closed his eyes and tapped his finger against the armrest of his opulent throne, as though keeping time with some faint strain of a melody only he could hear—that he was straining to hear. Occasionally tilting his head as though someone were whispering in his ear.

It made Bunbo's face heat somewhat in embarrassment for his master, because it must have seemed to his audience in his Siamese palace that he was not paying attention to the proceedings.

If that were the case, however, the ministers who had come to see him paid it no attention, and continued on as though they had his undivided attention.

"The destruction of Venus can only mean one thing for our peasant farmers," one was saying anxiously. "They will once again be under pressure by the Moon Kingdom to produce enough for the Queen's lavish parties—the ones she holds even now while so much of the Silver Millennium's former glory is crumbling to dust on the other planets. Does she truly expect Earth to just pick up the pace so that she can continue on as though nothing has happened in the last year?"

"I don't think she is quite as arrogant as you say," said another, a younger man with a scholarly appearance who might have been one of those evacuated from Titan. He added quickly when the other minister opened his mouth to protest: "But I do agree that these feasts of hers are wasteful in light of how the civilized solar system and its resources have shrunk so dramatically in such little time. On the one hand, there are fewer planets to feed, but on the other, refugees still used to their spoiled lifestyle of the past have crowded the lunar cities. Serenity will be demanding food and supplies for them, and we must ask ourselves if we have the right at a time like this to refuse her."

"Or," said the other, "if we refuse her regardless, what will be the consequences?"

"We will not refuse Serenity anything," Zoisite said, and the others turned their heads suddenly as though surprised he was still there.

His eyes were still closed and he still tapped a beat out on his chair's armrest, but he said as he did so in a sly tone of voice that captured everyone's attention, "We will give her everything she asks for, and she will pay the highest price _we_ ask for it, without any complaint."

As though he could hear the unspoken "however"'s on the tip of every tongue, Zoisite opened his eyes, and shot a penetrating gaze at the ministers gathered there. "The Moon Kingdom remains even after the war the wealthiest nation in the solar system. If it is provisions the Queen so desperately needs, then she will pay whatever price we ask for them. What alternative does she have? She cannot deny her people the livelihood they are used to. She will have whatever she needs, even if she has to pawn off her beloved Silver Crystal, and in the process she shall make our farmers as rich as kings."

He added under his breath, "Such a reversal of fortunes would only be a fair trade for the failures of this past war, wouldn't you agree?"

"You . . . you cannot be serious, my lord," one of the stunned ministers managed to speak. "You would honestly challenge the Queen like that?"

"Why not?" came a new voice from the doorway. "Are you afraid by doing so he might be playing dice with his people's lives? You fear retribution from the Queen's weary navy? That is the thinking of cowed slaves. If you are not willing to stand up to the injustice she and her court have perpetrated on Earthmen for so long, you do not deserve the opportunity that has been all but dropped in your lap."

Bunbo looked up from his notes, and all heads turned to face the intruder with awe at his audacity.

"Kunzite." Zoisite rose quickly to his feet, a boyish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. He trembled slightly with an excitement barely restrained. "What brings you this far south?"

"I seek counsel with my old friend on an urgent matter concerning the state of the Middle Kingdom and its Capital," Kunzite said from behind the audience. "And I think you would agree, its delicate nature demands a private audience."

"Of course." With a wave of his hand, Zoisite dismissed the others from the throne room, saying to them coolly, "We will continue this discussion at a later time. Until then, I would urge everyone to think about Master Kunzite's words—and about what place your country will take in this new system."

Bunbo made to rise and depart with the rest of them, but Zoisite stopped him with a hand on his elbow. "Bunbo," he said gently, warmly, his eyes trained on the guards who bracketed the entrance; and he need not have said any more for the boy to understand completely: when Kunzite said privacy he meant for it to be complete. Whatever matters needed such urgent discussion, they were not to be intruded upon or overheard by the wrong persons, including those whose jobs it might be to protect them.

The guards followed Bunbo out of the room with a few words and barred the doors, effectively cutting off the mumbled words inside from his ears.

Normally Bunbo would not have concerned himself with what his master and Kunzite had to discuss, but their behavior of late was anything but normal, ever since they had been banned from the Moon Kingdom. The whole affair was still a puzzle to him, one to which he felt he was missing a crucial piece, and that was a feeling Bunbo abhorred more than almost any other. So he excused himself from the guards and, remembering an obscure passageway that ran behind the throne, stationed himself in the shadows behind a latticed screen of intricately cut holes in the chamber's wall. Through that he could listen to their talk without being noticed, and maybe he would find in it some answers to his myriad questions.

He was more surprised by what they did not talk about than what they did. "What has happened in the Capital?" he could hear Zoisite asking, as he stepped down the shallow stairs before the throne toward Kunzite. "Is the Prince all right?"

"As much as he can be in light of being separated from his one true love," the other murmured wryly.

Zoisite hummed in thought.

"Do you hum out of empathy, Zoisite?"

He regarded Kunzite distrustingly at that, tracking him with his eyes as Kunzite drew near and slowly circled him with hands clasped at his back, with a proximity most would have found uncomfortable. Zoisite showed no sign of discomfort, however, though his eyes seemed to flash that much faster over his comrade as he said, not without a touch of hurt, "I don't know. If it's Mercury you mean, she seems to think I've frozen her out, but if you ask me it is much the other way around. . . . But what does this have to do with the situation in the Middle Kingdom you spoke of?"

"Nothing," Kunzite breathed. "Nothing that can't wait. I was merely wondering if I should still be jealous."

Zoisite's cheeks darkened slightly. "I thought you said it was urgent."

"It was. I had to see you at once—"

Kunzite cut himself off when he took Zoisite's face in his hands and kissed his mouth. The tenuous wall of restraint that Zoisite had erected around himself collapsed at that. He tilted his head and leaned into the kiss, and before long was pulling Kunzite down with him onto the carpeted stairs.

Their descent might have been awkward, but there was nothing clumsy to the urgency with which Zoisite's hands undid the clasps of his comrade's jacket; and Kunzite's mouth against the side of his throat was more than capable of making Zoisite's head roll back in a soundless gasp. He bit his lip against an audible whimper as he settled himself back against the shallow stairs, and Kunzite did something to him that was lost to Bunbo's eyes behind a bent knee.

In response to whispers the boy could not hear, Zoisite nodded and breathed a lusty affirmative. His back arched off the stair; his legs quivered. Whatever Kunzite had done, no one else Bunbo had ever known of could make his master plead like he was now; with no one else would Zoisite even think of humbling himself so utterly, or with such abandon.

He pushed himself to his knees and straddled Kunzite's hips, tugging at his jacket embroidered with gold thread and pearls as though it were peasants' clothing as Kunzite tugged at his trousers. The scar from his quarrel with Nephrite had healed quickly, but still stood out harsh and pink against the young man's pale skin, and the golden waves of his hair falling over his shoulder and collarbone. Zoisite shivered as Kunzite pressed his lips to it, closing his eyes and rolling his hips under his comrade's hands. The muscles in his arms strained from the desperate force with which he clutched Kunzite to him, as if he were Zoisite's only anchor in this world.

Bunbo was not naive. Even as a child he had possessed an understanding of the adult world that the innocence of his age should have spared him from. He had known of his master's affection for Kunzite since his first stay in the Middle Kingdom capital. Yet mere affection this was not, and it was quite another thing to see the two of them gasping and rutting on the throne room steps. The guards probably would not have heard them through the thick doors, but every moan reached Bunbo with painful clarity through the latticed screen, waging a war inside him between his sense of loyalty and this newfound repulsion.

Then, for a second, Zoisite raised his eyes in Bunbo's direction. The boy's heart leaped in his chest. It might have been only a split second, but he knew his master too well to believe he was completely safe—that he had not been caught out even in such a time as this by those green eyes that seemed able to penetrate not only the screen but Bunbo's own mind in the space of a single heartbeat.

Bunbo finally tore his eyes away then and sank back against the wall. He could not watch the rest of it, not after that, but he could hear them—he was still listening when their breathing slowed to normal, and his master, sounding nothing if not satisfied, said, "Now will you tell me the news from the Capital? Or was that just an excuse to come here and have your way with me?"

Kunzite chuckled. "No excuse. There is genuine unrest in the court, the old Prince's minsters butting heads with Endymion—"

"When do they ever not?"

"—regarding what must be done about the spacemen. To complicate matters, the Eastern Kingdom is threatening to secede unless its demands are met, and god knows the ministers have not yet had their fill of blood."

"And?"

"_And_," Kunzite said, "your Prince needs you."

——

_I never thought a time would come when I would have to say that I ceased to know Zoisite, for above all things, more than the scientific theories and old histories I eagerly devoured or the political dramas in which I was forced by my position to become expert, he had been my chief field of study for a decade. _

_Nevertheless, that time did come. _

_Something happened to him those few weeks in the Moon Kingdom when he had sequestered himself in his rooms with Kunzite and Jadeite, something I have only begun to understand the full depth of in the time since. What they did to him, I can only imagine. But what I knew perfectly clear in my heart was the moment he emerged from those rooms a changed person. A mirth that was once in his eyes, a passionate love for living as though it were all he really had, as though it were something to cling to for dear life, was gone, replaced by a cold, thinly-veiled cruelty that frightens me every time that gaze is turned my way. But he reminds me now of a wild thing, and each moment trapped alone with him is a moment spent fearing what he might do. My master could never be called predictable before, but now. . . . _

_And yet, how is it can say that I still love him? For I do, as strongly as I often feel I should not. Like I am a buttress that, if removed, will cause him to collapse under his own hopelessness. It is that hopelessness that frightens me more than anything else; it is out of that fear that I find myself, even now, willing to do anything for him. Is that how he has ensnared the two of us, princess? For we two are both stuck, are we not, in a love that can only hurt us now—too stubborn or stupid to get out, even to save our own skins?_

——

The tea had long grown cold in its pot. It was the full moon that always seemed so much larger in late summer that had so completely grabbed Endymion's attention. Even though to stare at it so pained him like nothing else, he could not turn away, but could only continue to gaze at its bone-colored face—in longing for the days not long ago when he had been free to come and go from that country as he pleased, and the distance of space seemed only a temporary nuisance to be traveled rather than a stark barrier between him and the Princess Serenity.

What was she doing at the same moment? he wondered as he looked up into space. Was she thinking of him with the same deep ache in her chest that afflicted him? What had they done to deserve this punishment? They had believed that even with the deceit and mistrust that waged war around them, their intentions had at least remained pure enough to light the world. But if that was their greatest crime, then what kind of world had theirs become?

A knock at his door startled Endymion out of his thoughts. He called out, "Who is it?"

"Zoisite, my Prince," came the reply muffled by the wood. "Am I disturbing you?"

Perhaps he should have taken that as a loaded question, but Endymion shrugged off his illogical misgivings. His response to come in, however, remained cold; he still had not forgiven his officer for what he had done to banish them from the Moon Kingdom.

"To what do I owe this visit?" he said wearily as he rose from the table.

His tone was not lost on Zoisite. "My Prince. . . ." His green eyes narrowed. "No doubt I deserve your displeasure, but it was because of my concern for your welfare that I came to the Capital as soon as I could."

"Concern, for my sake?" Endymion could have laughed, if it would not have pained him so. "It was because of you that I'm stuck down here and the Queen no longer trusts me."

Before he could finish, Zoisite was suddenly on his knees before him, taking Endymion's hand in his. "Forgive me, Endymion," he said, and the familiarity of his words was more genuine than the Prince had heard it since he had awarded Zoisite his kingdom almost a decade ago. "I was not thinking when I did what I did. I let my foolish passions spill over where they did not belong, and in the process the argument that should have remained between myself and Nephrite hurt more people than I ever intended. I never meant to involve you in my disputes. I love you, and would never do anything of my own free will to hurt you. Please believe me, I never intended for things to explode as they did!"

He tore his eyes from Endymion's to press his temple to the back of the Prince's hands. "Please. . . . When you hardly even knew me, you trusted me with a country of my own. After all we've been through together, will you deny me that trust now because of one poor decision? What happened would have happened one way or another, whether we like to think it or not, but for my part in hastening the inevitable I come to you with the deepest regret in my heart, knowing the one thing I cannot bear would be to be barred from your kindness, Endymion. Forgive me and I will do everything in my power to make up the wrongs I have done you."

He did not have to say so much, Endymion thought; he wanted desperately to forgive Zoisite himself, though recognizing that want and actually forgiving were two different matters. In any case, "I never stopped trusting you," he told his officer. Even when others told him he should have. He tugged at his own hand. "So get off your knees. It's embarrassing for me to have you treat me this way. Haven't I always said that we were equals?"

Slowly, Zoisite did as he asked. When he raised his face to Endymion's again, the Prince thought he caught a tear in the other's eye, though it might have been no more than a trick of the candlelight.

"You know it's useless to apologize to me," Endymion added. "It's Queen Serenity who needs convincing. And she isn't nearly as easy as I am."

Zoisite nodded his head once. "I understand completely, my Prince. I only wonder if she would even give me a chance to set right what I've done to offend her."

"It may not be up to you—or any of us, for that matter."

His cryptic choice of words made the other narrow his eyes once again. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I'm concerned for the state of the Middle Kingdom," Endymion confided in him, lowering his voice. "Perhaps it's just rumor, but I hear whispers about retribution, people who want Queen Serenity brought to task for imaginary crimes she was supposed to have committed against us."

"That's preposterous," Zoisite was quick to tell him with a shake of the head. "The horrors of the war are still fresh in people's minds; its wounds are still too new and too deep, especially for those in the Imperial Service who were hardest hit by the destruction. Nobody wants to start another conflict with the Moon Kingdom, especially at a time like this."

"You're saying there is no truth to these rumors, then?" Endymion was reluctant to believe the young man who had been his guardian and friend for so many years, though he could not exactly say why. "I am not a child, Zoisite," he said, "no matter how much the old ministers still treat me like one."

"I know that. And if there is any truth to the talk," Zoisite conceded, "I will find out and make sure an end is put to it forthwith—before any more bridges between our two worlds can be burned by someone else's recklessness. Trust me in this. It is the very least I can do for you."

He flashed Endymion a warm smile, that reassured the Prince like it had in less troublesome times. "In the morning," Zoisite added. "These matters can wait one more day. But for now, you must clear your mind of these thoughts of deceit and vengeance and get some rest. We need your strength to guide us now more than ever." And as he said so, he urged Endymion lean back against the pillows mounded at one end of his made bed.

Which the Prince did, if only reluctantly, while Zoisite, perched on the edge of the mattress, shifted closer to his elbow.

As he did so, he withdrew something that flashed gold from his pocket, as though to make himself more comfortable. But when his gaze alit on what he had in his hand, as if he had forgotten it was there, the Prince stared at it deeply: a star-shaped trinket just narrower than the palm of his hand, with an enamel face, whose insides jingled softly at the movement and then was quiet. "I know you're right—" said Endymion.

"Of course, I am," Zoisite said with a note of humor.

"But what of Selena?"

Zoisite stiffened and blinked at the name, if only for a second. He cast a disapproving glare at the golden trinket as well. But his smile held.

"Princess Serenity," Endymion clarified. "I cannot stop thinking about her no matter how I try. In truth, and perhaps it makes me a poor leader in a time like this, but it is the thought of her that wearies me more than any of the rest—that I am not there by her side, that I cannot comfort her from these new concerns like you are comforting me."

Zoisite smiled down at his Prince at that small compliment, and said out of the corner of his bashful smile, "Well, she has her own faithful guardians around her to do that." And as he said so, he focused his eyes on Endymion's forehead and gently brushed a lock of black hair from his eyes.

The Prince folded his hands together over the trinket on top of his stomach. He said, "Like Mercury, you mean?"

The weight of his question, however, seemed lost on Zoisite, whose touch and benevolent smile did not waver. "It's a shame we did not meet sooner in our lives than we did," he said instead, and it took a moment before Endymion understood that he was talking about the two of them.

The words fell from Endymion's tongue before he had a chance to stop them: "You remind me of her sometimes. Vaguely, in certain lights."

Zoisite exhaled sharply. "Really? Am I that delicate?"

It made Endymion's cheeks grow hot. "I only meant it in a general sense. Kunzite and Jadeite are like the brothers I never had, and Nephrite has always kept some distance between himself and me. But you. . . ." He turned his eyes from the ceiling they had been contemplating to meet Zoisite's. "Even when something is unpleasant, you have a gentleness in your manner that can be so saintly—that reminded me of Serenity when you and I first met."

Even when it was difficult to tell if that gentleness was completely genuine, Endymion told himself, it was nonetheless like a gravitational force that pulled one in toward Zoisite. "I am grateful to have you by my side."

That kind smile widened again, briefly. "Then please think of me in Serenity's place while we are yet like this," Zoisite murmured to him.

His choice of words puzzled Endymion, but he did not voice his uncertainty. Surely his friend had meant that invitation in a pure way that reflected the magnanimity in his spirit he had bravely, and sometimes recklessly, shown in the public forum on more than one occasion. And in any case, the fingers that caressed his hair with her same gentleness were quickly lulling him into that peaceful slumber that had eluded him for too long.

——

Bunbo backed away when he finally heard Zoisite's footsteps moving toward the door. He ducked back into the shadows that crisscrossed the dark hallway only seconds before the door opened with a quiet creak on its hinges, and a shiver coursed through him despite the mildness of the night.

Bunbo could tell himself there was no rational reason for his fear, just as there was none for sneaking around behind his master's back, yet he felt nonetheless compelled to do it, and had ever since it was apparent to him that the deep trust that once existed between himself and Zoisite had already begun to fade away and would never return to normal.

Zoisite closed the door softly behind him. However, there was something to the angle of his smile that disturbed Bunbo, and he could not say if the shadows were to blame or something else. Something more sinister.

Zoisite turned to walk away, then stopped. He did not turn, but said simply and quietly into the darkness, "So, you're spying on my movements now, are you, Bunbo?"

The boy started; he was sure he had not made a sound to give himself away.

Normally Bunbo would have had no problem with announcing his presence after that, and Zoisite would shrug off the whole matter with an easy chuckle. Yet that same irrational, uncertain fear seized Bunbo's throat then and would not let him speak.

Zoisite turned and in a second, before Bunbo could even blink, was at his side, his hand grabbing Bunbo's shoulder like a claw and pinning him to the wall. "What?" Zoisite's words were low in the quiet hallway so as not to disturb the Prince, yet loud enough for Bunbo to catch all the nuance in them, in their sarcastic tone of voice. "No answer for your master?"

"I'm sorry, sir." Somehow Bunbo found his voice. "I don't mean it the way it looks—"

"Is that so? Because it looks like you were trying to eavesdrop on my conversation with Endymion—just like you eavesdropped on Kunzite and myself?" At the memory of what he had more than heard, Bunbo darkened, and that brought a smile of satisfaction to Zoisite's face. "It's all right, Bunbo," he said soothingly now, but his grip did not let up. "No need to be embarrassed. You know I don't have any secrets from you. I only wonder why you feel the need for this cloak-and-dagger charade with me."

Bunbo could not answer the truth. Even his aversion to telling falsehoods would not let him say it, because the fear that was his reason was stronger than his will to obey. "Please," he whispered instead, wriggling against the wall under Zoisite's grasp, "you're hurting me. . . ."

The other's green eyes narrowed. "Hurting you. . . . My dear boy, if you think this is pain, you don't know what pain is."

But something clicked when Zoisite heard those words leave his mouth, and he changed his mind and relented his hold on the boy's shoulder.

"But forgive me." He smoothed the wrinkles he had made from Bunbo's jacket. "As I am constantly being reminded these days, I have not been myself lately. Or perhaps," he smiled wryly to himself, "the problem is that I have been too much myself. I fear I can no longer tell which is which. What do you think, Bunbo?"

In light of how hard he had dug into Bunbo's shoulder just moments ago, Zoisite's touch now was surprisingly gentle. Disturbingly so in the boy's opinion. As if it were intended precisely to lure him into a false sense of security, along with that musical voice, hypnotizing him where he stood.

"I don't know," Bunbo said, gathering his courage within him. "But whatever it is, I don't like it. I don't like it at all."

"Don't like . . . ?"

"What you've become."

"Ah." Zoisite let out a breathy chuckle. "Brutal honesty. I suppose I've never had reason to expect anything less from you. Yet that's one reason I appreciate you as much as I do, for through it all you've stuck by me when others would not, or just . . . did not care to. And during all these years you've done everything I've asked and more, and you've never asked for anything in return. Your loyalty has meant so much to me, Bunbo, at times I feel it is all I have left."

"Please—" Bunbo shook his head. The desperation in the other's voice, as though his heart were breaking in two as they spoke, was too much for the boy to bear. At such close proximity he could feel it creeping onto himself like a cancer, creeping and grasping, knocking at his defenses. "What I did . . . it was just my duty, nothing special. Honestly."

"But no one else has done for me what you have. You have no idea, Bunbo. . . . Through all the horrors we saw, the things we did . . . the times I behaved like a monster—"

"I didn't have a choice!"

"Didn't you?"

By the way he spoke, Bunbo wondered if those monstrous times Zoisite spoke of were only just beginning. He flinched when Zoisite stroked the side of his face with the back of his hand, and his skin was so cold against Bunbo's on such a warm night it made him shiver involuntarily. He shied away from his master's gaze, which penetrated him like it had back in Siam, as if plumbing the deepest parts of his mind where he kept his most private hopes and fears, bombarding them with nebulous visions of a future that was anything but good, nearly suffocating him. . . .

"Is it because you love me?"

Bunbo started. He held his tongue, but as his eyes met Zoisite's he could feel the answer he guarded jealously escaping from them, in them. It was too late to pretend now; in that heartbeat Bunbo knew: he had damned himself, because it was the truth.

He pushed himself off of the wall with all his might, but Zoisite's arms were there to hold him tight, slight though his master had always appeared. His hold was to Bunbo like the weight of a whole world of suffering being pressed on top of him—suffering of the past, and suffering yet to come. Suffering he would cause if he did nothing now. If he just let himself be taken. . . .

"No. . . . No, please—" Bunbo abandoned his calm, which he had clung to like a shield for so long, and yelled. Somehow, even then, he knew no one would hear him, not even the sleeping Prince—but what else could he do? Fight the inevitable? He might as well have been boxing the shadows. "Just let me go! I beg you—don't make me do this!"

Because I'll give in too easily, his heart screamed with every pounding beat of it. I know that already. I don't have a choice. I never did. . . .

"It's a little late for you to be begging now, isn't it? Better you just accept your reward like a good boy."

Bunbo cringed as Zoisite plunged his hand beneath his jacket, remembering with disturbing clarity how his master had panted on the steps of his palace, like he was panting in Bunbo's ear now. But there was something else in this need, something infinitely more repulsive and pure, wonderful and agonizing and evil that made him suck in a breath when the palm of that hand came to rest over his heart.

That made him sob in desperation for his life, for his eternal soul— "I want no part in this thing that's corrupted you!"

"Now, Bunbo," Zoisite murmured at his ear with the tenderness of lover, before Bunbo felt that first black sting pierce his flesh, "you know that's one promise I cannot make."

——

"I tell you," Oval said, "there are spies in our midst."

"Really," said Oblong, "you're being paranoid."

"Am I?" The wizened minister of the late Prince set down his cup with a ring of porcelain and leaned over the short table that had been set in the governor's daybed. "Then tell me how the contents of Governor Sphere's private transmissions," he said with a gesture to the man in question, "have come to be learned by the Moon Kingdom if not through the work of a carefully integrated spy network? They know what we are doing in the desert. They knew about our resolution to curb immigration to Earth from space before the ink was even dry on the first draft! We have not done nearly enough to protect ourselves, too much worrying about 'civil liberties' and all this hypocritical democratic rot that passes for philosophy among the spacemen these days. But what about the wives of these young scholars they brought back with them from Titan or god knows what forsaken world? Has anyone bothered to examine where their loyalties lie?"

From his slouch against the wall, one elbow perched on his bent knee, Zoisite chuckled over the lip of his teacup.

The other ministers looked at him. "You find something amusing in this, young man?" said the governor.

"Very," Zoisite answered wryly. "This whole discussion is a farce."

"That is it! That is it, I have had it up to here!" said Oval. He put his teacup down again, this time so hard the tea splashed out of it over his shaking, wrinkled hands, though he did not even flinch. "I knew it was foolish to think I could expect to sit down to tea and have a _rational, clear-headed_ discussion with an insolent upstart like this supposed guardian of the Prince's. You know I fought Boxy's decision to name him one of the four regional emperors tooth and nail, didn't I, Oblong?"

"Yes, you did," the other conceded with a lopsided smile that was both bitter and amused.

"And the feeling has always been mutual," Zoisite said graciously. "And yet, as I am often reminding myself much to my chagrin, we do after all both call the Earth our home and have the same general concerns at heart."

"That is also very true," said Sphere.

"And still I stand by that same decision now," the minister went on as though the others had not spoken. "I always knew it was a bad idea to risk so much on a foreigner who has been raised on the crazed notions of the barbaric Far West."

"Even if it was those barbaric westerners who helped us defeat the Dark Agency on Venus?" Oblong reminded him. "In case you don't remember, the warships were largely Master Zoisite's doing."

"If only the Queen had had the foresight to use them sooner," said Sphere.

"If only there had been no need to use them at all. Mankind has crossed a dangerous technological threshold in this past war and I wonder if it has really made us safer at all. Are we safer for having the ability to destroy ourselves completely?"

Zoisite looked sideways at his old mentor, but he held his tongue.

"Master Oblong raises a valid point," Kunzite said as he turned from admiring the view out the governor's door to face them. Beyond him, the lilies of the summer garden outside bowed their heads in a slight breeze, and the trickling of an artificial stream that reached them was rivaled in its calming effect only by the silver-haired officer's poise. "No advancement is ever made without some sort of sacrifice; and the greater the cause, the greater the danger often is."

"It is only natural that Queen Serenity is wary of our activities," Zoisite added. "Her authority has been weakened by the war on her system, while our economy continues to strengthen."

Sphere harrumphed. "And yet it was not that long ago when our Prince was criticized in their academic circles for not yet being able to unite the whole planet in one Kingdom of Earth. That struggle has been going on since the beginning of our civilization and we have come closer in this generation to achieving it than ever before. Whereas _she_, who was essentially _handed_ a unified solar system on the proverbial platter, could not even hold on to _that_. And now so many planets are decimated on account of her impotence."

Zoisite smiled at his frustration. "And yet some would say a whole solar system is much larger than one terrestrial planet, Governor."

His sarcasm seemed lost on all but Kunzite, however, who chuckled, and Oblong, who found no humor in it.

"We must seize this opportunity that has been given to us!" Oval said. "It is our sacred duty to build up our nation into an empire the likes of which the spacemen have never seen nor ever thought capable of us. It is now within our power to create a unified Earth nation—in place of a Silver Millennium, a Golden Kingdom which shall be ruled from Earth by its Crown Prince."

"Brilliant," said Zoisite with more enthusiasm than he meant. "The sun and all the planets shall once again revolve around us."

At last the insincerity of his words earned him a reproachful glance from Oval.

"But it is not enough," said Sphere. "If we threatened to back out of our long-standing relationship with the Moon, to upset the balance of this system as it has existed for countless generations—which is essentially what you are proposing, Master Oval—though I do not disagree with the spirit of such a notion, you must realize Serenity will oppose us every step of the way. She has too much to lose if she sets us free of our servitude to the Moon Kingdom. You may as well thumb your nose at the gods themselves."

"Then there is only one option left open to you," said Zoisite.

The brutal seriousness in his words brought the table to a stunned silence.

"You must declare war against the Moon Kingdom," Kunzite explained for him.

"War?" Oval squeaked when he had regained his senses. Which was understandable: the other's manner seemed much too casual for such a serious proposal. "Have you gone mad? Serenity would crush us if we tried to oppose her with force!"

"But you do not disagree with the heart of the notion?"

"How can you even speak those words so openly?" said Sphere, lowering his voice. "If news of this got back to the Moon Palace, we would be finished here. This is treasonous talk."

"The Queen cannot read your minds from space," Kunzite said. "Nor, may I remind you, is it treason when the nation you are talking about going to war with is not your own. Have you really let these spaceman rumors get so deep under your skin, Governor?"

Sphere went red in the face, and Zoisite said in response, as he gracefully set down his cup, "If anything, to declare war now would be an act of patriotism."

"We have a superior navy that continues to grow every day, and the capacity to make an effective siege on the entire Moon Kingdom," Kunzite said. "The chances are excellent we might win a war within days without suffering more than minimal casualties on both sides. And I am willing to bet that the Queen would have the problem of casualties at the forefront of her mind after the disasters of this last war. Titanites and Venusians are one thing; but I guarantee she would rather surrender than risk the lives of her own Moonpeople."

"I believe you're right," said Sphere, "but the Prince would never go along with it. He is too attached to that world for his own good."

"He might be persuaded if his ministers supported the plan unanimously."

To the others' silence, Zoisite added, "We do not have the authority to declare war ourselves. But if the Prince's government were united in its decision, he would risk a vote of no confidence if he failed to adequately address the nation's concerns."

As he said so, Kunzite produced a letter and unrolled it for those in the daybed to read. "Master Rhombus has already sent his approval from Japan. He has signed his consent to the declaration with the official seal of the Eastern Tributary Kingdom."

Governor Sphere and Oval peered at the document he held out before them with keen interest. "And Master Jadeite . . . I assume he is aware of this?"

The decades-old disagreement between the two who regrettably shared a biological bond as father and son was well known by the Prince's court. So their impressed gestures were not made in jest when Kunzite told them, "He is more than aware. He agrees that this is the right direction for our Earth Kingdom to take."

"This is madness!" At last, Oblong found his voice. He could not work his way out of the daybed fast enough for his repulsion. "Are you all insane? Have you completely lost your wits that you cannot see what is going on here? You are all being deceived! The Moon Queen has done us no evil."

"If that is true," said Zoisite, "then what have we been discussing the last half hour?"

"The tongues of vipers can twist any lie into sounding like the shining truth, but that does not change the fact that it is a lie. You are letting fear and hatred get the best of you, Master Oval, Governor, and these young men know that and would use it to their advantage. I am warning you to think of your people, the countrymen who depend on you to guide and protect them, Governor—think of your Prince, before you go rushing into some damnfool idea that could get us all killed. Has this system not suffered enough?"

For a moment, his words made Zoisite doubt in his mission, and he exchanged glances with Kunzite.

"Master Oblong," Oval said, blinking his offense, "perhaps all those books written by spacemen you have collected in your study have perverted your ability to weed truth from fiction. We are already in the midst of a war, if you have not noticed—a war for our own sovereignty, our dignity, our very way of life. We must send a message to Serenity that we will not tolerate her spies breathing down our necks, that she cannot tell us what we must and must not do with our own resources." He gestured to Kunzite to bring them a brush and ink with a hooked finger, saying, "I will sign any declaration Master Rhombus has committed himself to."

"All right, then." Oblong snorted in frustration. "Fine. Do as you wish. But I will not sign my name to anything so blatantly and avoidably doomed. I will have no part of more war or this talk of a 'Golden Kingdom.' And I will not be there to blame when this plan backfires on all of you."

And with that he turned and stalked out of the governor's office without a glance back.

Kunzite turned to watch him go, but Oval said to him, "Let him go. He'll come around. And if he doesn't . . . Well, that's one less bleeding-heart traitor to slow us down." He shot a hard glance at Sphere. "Isn't that right, Governor?"

The governor had to shake himself out of a stare. "No. I concur. If—like you say, Master Kunzite—this declaration is at heart a statement to Serenity of our sovereignty and our might in this system, then we cannot afford not to make it."

Kunzite smiled as he bowed his head to him. "Wisely put, Governor."

"That is the inherent difference between you and I, Governor Sphere," said Oval as he wrote. "I do not pretend that I care how many spacemen lose their lives as a result of our decisions. How many Earthmen have they already consigned to death by overworking in the fields or starvation so that they might have their lavish balls and their lavish feasts? No," he said as he passed the document over to the governor, "I would demand reparation. I would see that they pay for their oppression of the past, and that Serenity knows full well what her complicity in their crimes has cost her Moon Kingdom. It is a matter of our survival."

"With _that_ point at least," said Sphere, "I could not agree more. Master Kunzite." He produced a key from his pocket. "Would you get me my seal?"

Zoisite shifted in his seat, and none would have thought it was not merely to get a better view. "Have you already signed the declaration, Governor?"

"That is what I am doing now," he said as he concentrated on the characters of his name and station. "Is it not, young man?"

Kunzite glanced at his younger comrade over his shoulder before he bent over the locked drawer.

Then Sphere announced, setting down the brush, "There. But for the seal, it is finished."

A demure smile crossed Zoisite's lips as he turned the document on the table to face him. He glanced over it and said, "Then it is official. The Prince's ministers have declared war on the Moon Kingdom. I suppose there is nothing left for us to discuss here."

Sphere opened his mouth to say more, but only a strangled gasp escaped him. The turn of Zoisite's wrist had been so casual, neither of the old men bothered to suspect that in such subtle movements he had actually been sending daggers of ice, concealed behind the daybed screen, shooting into the governor's back.

Sphere arched and stiffened when they sunk into him, then pitched forward over the table, two spikes of razor-sharp ice protruding from his back. One had pierced the lung judging by the sickly gurgle that preceded his death; the other struck vital organs somewhat lower.

And Oval could do nothing but watch his colleague's life gradually leave him, stalk still was he with shock.

When he regained his senses he turned on Zoisite, his yellowed eyes bulging at the young man as he screeched, "What have you done?"

"I have executed Governor Sphere," Zoisite said with a solemn sigh, "for treason against the Prince of Earth." It was still early in the season, and the weapons that had done the governor in would melt before any of them left his rooms.

"Treason. . . ." Oval trembled as he breathed the word. He sputtered, and then exploded: "You deceitful bastards—you _demons!_ It was you who made us sign that declaration! You entrapped us!"

Kunzite merely chuckled as he set the seal on the desk and watched his comrade's play unfold itself.

Spittle gathered at the corner of the old minister's mouth as he continued his rant. "I always knew you were an abomination, a barbarian. Both of you! Cursed demonic, spacemen spawn! I wanted to warn the Prince, but he wouldn't listen. You've tricked him too with your honey-coated lies!"

Oval was not able to say a word more. A heartbeat later and Zoisite was on his knees with the old man pinned against the wall and a blade of ice as sharp as those that had killed the governor against his throat. It had no handle, but rather extended up the life line of his palm thinner than a shard of glass and ran along his index finger, the tip of which gently increased the pressure against Oval's skin.

"Sharp words for an impotent old man like yourself," Zoisite cooed to him over his panicked breaths. "But not as sharp as this blade. It's so cold, you'll feel nothing but the slightest sting as it cuts in, and the sensation of your lifeblood leaving you."

Oval's breathing quickened so that it looked like he would hyperventilate before that could happen. "Wait! Don't kill me!" he begged. "I have spent my life serving faithfully two generations of Princes—"

"And for that I should reward you with a swift death. Alas. . . ." Zoisite's smile was wicked against the old man's brow as he glanced at Kunzite. "You're a fan of reparations, are you not, Minister? Well, for the pain you've caused me I have half a mind to make sure you suffer."

He eased up his hold on the blade of ice, and a trickle of water mixed with blood from a surface nick ran in a pink rivulet through the sweat on Oval's wrinkled neck.

Zoisite said nonchalantly, "Are you aware, Minister, that the human body, like the Earth's surface, is comprised mostly of water? I wonder what would happen to a person if that water were to freeze."

At first Oval thought he was just talking to talk, but as Zoisite's meaning sank in he started in horror. He made a move to escape but the young man held him with a grip that made his body go still and tremble like a frightened animal.

"First the smaller capillaries in the extremities would harden and starve the flesh of oxygen," Zoisite said as he watched the minister with the cruel smile of an angel, "before the frost made it up the bloodstream to the internal organs, shutting them down one by one until it finally reached the heart. . . . How do you think that would feel, Minister?"

Oval opened his mouth to denounce the young man, but the words were unintelligible as he tried to form them through his chattering teeth. His breath left him in a cloud of vapor when it hit the warm air, and seeing it Oval's eyes bulged in their sockets. That was when the reality of his situation finally sank in, and he wet himself. Even that was not as warm as it should have been.

"Right!" Zoisite laughed. "It's unimaginable, isn't it? But even that is a fate gentler than what the vacuum of space will do to you. It will boil the blood in your veins as it sucks it from your eyes and ears and every pore in your body. I've seen my share of men die that way, Master Oval. So as you feel the ice moving each inch closer to ending your life, I want you to ponder how even this agony you're feeling pales in comparison to the fate to which you've just damned a million spacemen."

Oval did not answer. But his yellowed eyes continued to glisten with terror and hatred and condemnation even as his skin turned a sickly white under Zoisite's hand, and his lips purpled.

The end came for him silently, as if Oval were only falling asleep—albeit with his eyes open—though Zoisite consoled himself that the minister's last moments must have been filled with inexpressible horror.

When at last the minister was dead, falling against the daybed screen like a slab of frozen meat, Zoisite stood gracefully with an inaudible sigh, and Kunzite said, "Sometimes you do frighten me, Zoisite. By your manner I'd almost think you enjoyed killing them."

"Maybe it was not bloodying my hands in battle that is to blame," the other said while he disinterestedly fixed the positions of the tea cups on the daybed table. "Having a bird's-eye view of the destruction and one finger on the button has a tendency to warp one's perspective of mortality. Wouldn't you agree?" He flung back the words with a smile that was downright seductive: "Do you really envy me now, Kunzite?"

"No," Kunzite said simply through a smile that was at once full of admiration and disgust.

"I only wish Rhombus were here. I had no quarrel with Sphere, and Oval was simply an ass, but that man. . . ." Zoisite exhaled sharply and shook his head at memories years distant, as he passed a casual glance over the newly made declaration of war. "Though I cannot say I envy Jadeite the deed that fell to him. My own father never lived long enough for the thought to even enter the picture."

"But nor was your father Rhombus."

"No, he was not. He was a great king . . . and a just human being. Perhaps it is for the best he passed long ago. There are limits to what even I can stomach for the good of my country." Such thoughts seized Zoisite with a darkness that made him retreat suddenly inside himself. It had been enough to murder his uncle knowing they shared the same flesh and blood. He shook himself before that darkness could consume him—or make him doubt his purpose here—and he held out the declaration to Kunzite. "Stamp this for me, would you? The word must be gotten out at once." And he stretched once Kunzite took the paper from him.

"Endymion will oppose this," Kunzite said. "And his word is more powerful than all his father's ministers combined."

"But even a Prince must listen to the desires of his people. Though Oblong could complicate matters. He still has influence here."

"He will be arrested under charges of passing secret information to the Moonpeople. It will be our word against his, but in times like these the fear the simple accusation would rouse should hold him long enough for our purposes." Kunzite cast his comrade a curious glance. "I'm more interested in what you plan to do now."

"Return to Araby," Zoisite said. "In the city where I grew up they are fighting invaders from Europe who feel entitled to their land. I will see if there are not some who would be sympathetic to our struggle in return for the Middle Kingdom's aid. We have the shipyards of Bamiyan, and an army in the north that could bring about the advent of a Golden Kingdom of Earth at a moment's notice. Endymion may have been blinded by Serenity, but he cannot stop the flood once the gates are broken. He will see the light eventually. It is his duty." He looked down, feeling a slight pang in his shoulder. "Now, if only there were some way we could reach Nephrite."

Kunzite chuckled at that, making Zoisite look up at him with knitted brows.

He only said, cryptically, "Do not worry yourself over Nephrite. I assure you, he is well taken care of."

——

Across the desk in his private observatory in India, Nephrite bent and watched and measured in the dark the movements of the sunspots drifting like a smudge of ink across the bright disk of the reflected sun. If his calculations were correct, these spots were over one hundred thousand miles across—far larger than any recorded in human history. He heard his staff marveling at the colorful lights the solar waves made in the night sky, like silent fireworks in the Earth's magnetic field, but what they did not know was what troubled him so much: that those lights of the aurora borealis that he had witnessed once of twice before in Manchuria were not meant to be seen at these latitudes.

They boded ill—for the crop and for civilization. If these spots had a natural cause, sprang from some new surge of energy within the sun itself, it was bad enough. But more than the almanacs and their dire warnings, and the myths that had shaped his childhood that he recalled with a new wariness, it was the scientist in him that feared the repercussions most.

Something was brewing. Inside the star on which they depended for everything, something huge was brooding.

What the facts outlined, his intuition filled in. And he had learned long ago to listen to his intuition.

"What is the meaning of this news from the Capital?" His mother stopped him with a hand on his arm as she searched his eyes for an answer at their last meeting. Though she was his mother, she was not made of the same stuff as he, and gray had frosted her temples since last they spoke to one another, and wrinkles had deepened her gaze—from worry, he guessed, about her son who was fighting an enigmatic enemy on worlds a million miles away. "Stop your pacing, Nephrite, and answer me. I hear the old Prince's advisors have declared war on the Moon Kingdom, and now there is rumor that the prime minister of Japan has committed suicide."

"What do you want me to tell you, Mother?" he had sighed, from futility rather than frustration.

"Then it's true. . . . How can Endymion let this come to pass? He wants war less than any of us. Can't he do anything? He is the Crown Prince of the Earth, for goodness sake! Can't _you_ do anything?"

"All I can," he assured her. "Those ships gathered in Bamiyan will not leave this atmosphere if I have anything to do with it."

"But I tell you, if what they say is true even Endymion can no longer control his own officers. For all Kunzite and Jadeite say they oppose the declaration, I do not buy their excuse that their hands are tied. No one's hands are ever tied. And as for Zoisite, I cannot believe. . . ."

She fought for the words but none would come that she found satisfactory, to describe what was being said about the boy she had raised like a second son for a short handful of years. What was on the tip of her tongue, he echoed within himself: they did not know any of them anymore. Not a one.

And yet he had the stubborn presence of mind to assure her that the rumors were mistaken, even when he had witnessed for himself the careful madness that had taken over his beloved comrades in the darkness of space, and made them strangers to him.

He turned away from the projection of the sunspots and scrawled a quick message to the ministers at the Imperial Observatory in the Capital. They alone could be trusted to read his calculations as they were intended; and if they did not, then there was truly no one left he could trust in this world that had gone completely mad.

No one but the Prince, but even that was frighteningly little comfort these days.

After the dark of the observatory, the midday sun streaming into the palace made Nephrite squint his eyes—as if it were trying to deny what was taking shape on its surface, and reassure him that things would go on as they always had. That they were not on a precipice as unstable as that which had sent them into the last war. It only made the notes in his hand feel that much heavier, his footsteps on the marble mosaics of astral godlings that much more urgent. Messenger was too slow, he decided; he would speak with the imperial astronomers in real time, from the telecommunication screen in his audience hall.

He threw open the doors, stepped inside, and halted. The doors slowed to a stop behind him and he could do nothing but stand and gawk at his chair, which was currently occupied.

It was Jadeite who looked up at him, one leg thrown over the other as he raised his head from the fist on which it leaned. "Good of you to join us, Nephrite," he said, his old humor turned slippery as a serpent. His blue eyes flashed like cold lightning under his fair brow.

"What are you doing here?" Nephrite growled. On instinct, he found himself assuming an en garde stance.

Jadeite merely laughed at that.

"Now, Nephrite, is that any way to treat your old friend, one with whom you've been through so much? I had to come immediately," he said as though it were obvious, as though it were for Nephrite's sake. "I tried to reach you as soon as I heard the news about us going to war, tried to warn you, but for some reason you chose to ignore my calls. Now, enlighten me: why would you do that to an old friend, huh?"

"Maybe if things between you and the Prince had stayed the same, you would be justified in asking for an apology," Nephrite parried, "but as they stand, you must know full well why I've done what I've done."

Jadeite sighed and turned his eyes.

"You are not yourself," Nephrite persisted. "You've been changed somehow, you and Kunzite, and Zoisite—by our enemy or because of it, I do not know, but I feel it and I see the evidence of it on your face, in everything you say and do. Whatever has done this to you, if I know only one thing about its identity it is that it is the same force to blame for this surge in solar activity."

The truth came to him even as he spoke, the connections quickly coalescing into a clear answer, as though whispered from out of the field of stars he considered his companions and teachers. "The Dark Agency on Mars and Venus. . . . The great master that Danburite professed to serve, it is one and the same, isn't it? It's what has done this to you!"

Jadeite interrupted him with the hollow clapping of his hands. "Give the man a prize," he gestured to no one in particular. "I should have known if anyone would figure it out it would be you. Zoisite underestimated you, and that was his mistake. Can't pull the wool over your eyes, no sir."

"I'll ask again." Nephrite gritted his teeth. "What are you doing here?"

And Jadeite sobered instantly.

"I'm only going to ask you this once, so I want you to consider your answer carefully. I do it because I love you, Nephrite, as a brother, and I want to spare you a whole world of pain and suffering the likes of which—believe me—you don't want to imagine. I've spoken to Beryl and she has made arrangements. You accept right here and now, and I promise I will do everything in my power to make the process of your conversion as easy on you as possible—"

"Go to hell."

"Join us, Nephrite," Jadeite continued as if he had not been interrupted. "We need you. Your Prince needs you—"

"Right. He needs me to protect him from the lot of you!"

"Faithful to the end. Who would have thought you would be the one," Jadeite sighed, shaking his head. And Nephrite loathed to admit that there was something in Jadeite's voice he had never quite noticed before, something that made his words, repulsive as they were, nearly irresistible. "Don't do this to me, Nephrite. Can't you see I'm trying to help you—"

"Your help be damned," Nephrite stopped him before he could say another word, before the spell of his entreating manner could take its hold, "and get the hell out of my house!"

He spun to leave, but as he did so he heard his old comrade leap to his feet behind him.

"Stop right there, Nephrite! I'm not finished with you yet!" Jadeite's voice boomed like a peal of thunder in the hall, and the doors slammed shut before Nephrite's face at his very words. Even Nephrite's feet seemed more sluggish for them, but he did step forward, and gripped the door handles in both hands. They would not budge.

"Let me out, Jadeite," he spat at the other, "or so help me, I'll tear you apart—"

The blond's pained laughter made the words die on his lips, however. "_You_'ll tear _me_ apart." His eyes were like those of madman, yet with his feet apart and a hand on his hip he stood like all the emperor he should have been years ago and more. "I have Metallia on my side," he said. "And what do you have, Nephrite? Your pale, distant stars, your constellations? Do you suppose they will save you from the conquerer of worlds? Do you even know who you would set yourself against—what power would be yours if you only surrendered yourself to it, held out your hand for it? You who have one foot in the realm of science and one in magic, are not even the least bit curious about all she has to offer? My god, Nephrite. . . . With her behind you you could rewrite the very universe itself. The laws of physics would be at your beck and call."

As he said so, so leisurely, a lopsided smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, he snapped the fingers of his right hand. While Nephrite watched, a woman materialized out of the shadows, clad in a tight blue suit the color of the ocean that hugged every curve as if it had been poured onto her frame—like her jet-black hair that fell like water over her shoulders. He could not tell if she had been there all along or had slipped into the room through some hole in the fabric of space, for it was as if she had been pulled into reality by Jadeite's very words. As her heavy eyelids fluttered, she spoke: "You called for me, Master Jadeite?"

Jadeite need not have said any more; the satisfaction on his lips spoke volumes.

And it made Nephrite sick. "I've seen enough," he said.

"Refuse her and you are only hurting yourself, my friend! You cannot stop the inevitable; you only delay it."

"Then I will fight her until I am no more." And Nephrite prepared himself to blow open the doors if he needed to.

"I would beg you to reconsider," came a cool, rich, and vaguely familiar feminine voice from the shadows. "If not for your own sake, at least for ours . . . for your countrymen."

Nephrite turned toward the voice to see who had spoken, and found his memory did not fail him. It was the Countess Jakoukai who gazed patiently back at him, as regal and stern as ever. She must have been older than his mother, but even her years spent in space could not have accounted for the unnatural youthfulness of her appearance that Nephrite swore had not been there when he had been under her tutelage.

And she was not alone. Either Nephrite had been too preoccupied with his colleague to see them or they had stepped out of whatever realm had produced the Japanese girl beside Jadeite—a dozen young noblewomen and serving girls who had grown up in and around his household. Who had grown up with him. Kyameran and Petasos, Jumo, the twins who had fondly bid him call them Castor and Pollux, and so many others whose lives and families he knew intimately. With the languid sound of sliding silk they gathered closer in, crowding around him, barring his exit with their bodies.

Their proximity repulsed Nephrite—he could feel the evil rising off of them like a vapor—and he shied away in the only direction left open to him, closer to Jadeite.

And the other's confidence as he hopped down the steps toward him told Nephrite he knew it.

Nephrite narrowed his eyes. "You did this to them."

"They did this to themselves," Jadeite told him. "I told you: resisting Metallia is useless. Anyone can be turned, even your own mother." He noted Nephrite's snarl. "But they all came willingly . . . and for you, I'll have you know. All for the love of you. Would you deny our great master now and throw away the sacrifices they have made?"

"Even if I sold my soul to your devil, it wouldn't redeem a single one of theirs."

Jadeite pretended to consider the question carefully. "No. But it might ease the guilt a little." When they were less than an arm's length away, Jadeite raised his hand in a gesture of offering, and put it lightly to Nephrite's shoulder. He lowered his voice. "I'll ask you one more time," he said. "Join us. Swear your service to our Queen and help us wage war against the Moon Kingdom, for a unified Earth. For a supreme Earth Kingdom."

Before his old friend could see it coming, Nephrite landed a blow to the side of his face. "There's your answer," he growled, and Jadeite staggered, the shock in his eyes reminiscent of Zoisite's in the Moon Palace.

But Nephrite felt none of the same remorse he had then. Now he knew better. This was not the Jadeite who had campaigned beside him in the northern territories, whose life he had saved. "You can go to hell," Nephrite hissed at him, "you and the rest of your monsters!"

The blond's lips curled back in a snarl even as he held his stinging cheek, his face going as pale as the glove on that hand. "Take him!" he yelled to the women who surrounded them. He shrugged off the calming advances of the woman in blue and staggered away from her to jab his finger at Nephrite, as though his old colleague had done more than strike him. "Take him to Beryl and see to it she does not spare him!"

Their hands surrounded Nephrite, pulled at him unceasingly even as he tried to pull away—grasping hands soft and sleek and brown against the fabric of his clothes, but possessing of a strength that was not natural, and tight as wisteria vines, twisting around him, determined not to let him escape. They breathed words on him fragrant with all the perfumes available to their stations, and yet the cloying frangipani and plumeria and cardamom seemed to him now like poison in his nostrils, in his lungs, suffocating him.

"Let him suffer!" Jadeite bellowed, his face contorted with his fury, his injury. "I want him to feel everything! I want him to know with every cell just what awaits those who oppose us before he begs her for her mercy and power!"

Never, Nephrite thought, he would never beg for such an abomination as that.

But even that vow could not beat back what he knew in his heart to be inevitable. He could not even fight off these women; how could he expect to defend himself from the creature that had made them into the monsters they were. Like an animal in a trap, he would deny the futility of his predicament for as long as possible, even as he watched Jadeite turn from him, drop himself wearily into Nephrite's chair and massage his temple.

And say, as if out of some nightmare, "He will be thankful when it's done—and wish he'd taken me up on my generosity when he had the chance."

——

_If we lived as kings in Heaven in the golden years of the Silver Millennium, those idyllic years before the war, then in these months since its supposed close we have reigned as if already in Hell—blissful in our ignorance of our inevitable condition, riding this wave of newfound nationalism onto the rocks. _

_I was not there when Zoisite first came into his kingdom in Burma, but I have heard the stories over the years of the eagerness with which he was received, this fresh face with a revolutionary perspective, an insatiable intellect, a fierce and subtle charisma, and a mandate from the heavens—and whatever those may be. The Capital, the Moon, or the Cosmos Nephrite speaks of with such reverence. It never mattered which. _

_But I was there for the rise of the Elephant King of the Southern Tributary Kingdom, and even those days paled next to the decadence and the gloriously reckless passion with which he has thrown himself into ruling now, into rousing the Arab people on the western borders of the empire and harnessing his own people's sentiments into a powerful creative force. They come from all over the civilized world to work in the shipyards in the desert, their homesickness banished by tales of his heroic exploits in battle in space. Subjects who profess to worship only one god, the true God according to their faith, come to him on bent knee, kiss the floor before his feet like they might kiss the hem of some idol's robe, supplicate themselves to him like their songs sing of submitting to the mercy of God. _

_The problem is that even as I watch, with disgust and with love, even I cannot decide if this is blasphemy or simply the way things should have always been. For even now, Zoisite has never been a more magnanimous commander, nor a more faithful servant to his own Prince. _

_At least, in his mind._

(Bunbo's hand goes still, and the ink continues to soak into the paper from the unmoving pen, before he realizes the uneven aesthetic of this last thick, blurred stroke and picks it up. He must go on, he must say what he has set himself to say, but he cannot find the proper words, even as the urgency of the matter weighs harder down upon him.

Perhaps _because_ the longer the right words escape his grasp, the heavier the task of writing them seems to become. But it is important that he do so. No. Crucial, and urgent. If not for that, he doubts he would have the will to keep going at all.)

_There was a time when my greatest fear was of growing old _(he writes after a fresh dip into the ink well)_. We were together in the Moon Palace when it first struck me, right to the heart of me, what it meant that you and Zoisite would not age, that you would remain virtually unchanged for a thousand years; while I, a mere Earthman, a boy of eighteen at the time who had not even reached his peak, would surpass you both in the blink of a cosmic eye, grow white and wrinkled and feeble, and soon pass away. Not even the long lunar days would save me, even if I spent every day of the rest of my life on that pale world. _

_It was my greatest sadness, my one fear, to have the eternity you would share denied me. And now it all seems so foolish. How many nights' sleep did I waste on such concerns, knowing what I do now—for that is what I was doing. I was wasting my life, not knowing that those days I feared would never come to pass, and every moment I still breathed I should have been thankful for it, and for the pleasures of which time had graciously allowed me a few years, a few moments to partake. _

_If only hindsight were not so damnably retroactive. _

_You must be asking as you read this where this line of thought is going. God knows I wonder that myself. So I beg you to forgive me if I ramble onto stray tangents. If I do so, take it only as a reflection of the nature of my thoughts of late, but nothing, as I need not remind you, has been the same since Venus fell. _

_Dearest Mercury, already I have wasted so many opportunities to speak to you. Five years have passed since you asked me to tell you a story. And in that time, I have lost count of all the letters I wrote you with great hopes in my heart, but never sent because despite myself I felt a sense of duty to keep my master's secrets safe. _

_So I will not blame you if you hesitate to believe me now, yet the fact remains I find a frantic sense of urgency in my hand as I write this. This letter must reach you. No longer can I afford not to send it. For even as I remain loyal to Zoisite, I am writing this letter nonetheless to warn you about him, and about what he has become. About what _I _am fast becoming. My love for you will not allow me to conceal it any longer. Though I know how it will hurt you, still it must be said, for the longer I spare you the truth the worse the outcome is likely to be. _

_The Silver Millennium will not last. I have seen its future, or rather its lack of one. I know it will soon be destroyed if we continue on this course, if we do nothing to stop it. And even then, I fear, our efforts may be too little too late. _

_It was the darkness that invaded our solar system that caused the destruction of the past war, a force that may as well be chaos itself for all the fear and suspicion and hate and anger it stirs in men's souls, nurtures, and twists to its own whims so that men will set themselves upon their own neighbors. It made the citizens of the outer planets who had never had anything in their hearts but love for Serenity rise up against her, and if it could do that to her loyal subjects, then it takes no great stretch of the imagination to think of what kind of power such a force as that can wield here on Earth, with our age-old distrust, and conviction of our own superiority in the system. _

_Mercury, even now you must be saying to yourself that these fears of mine are baseless, because that darkness I speak of was destroyed on Venus. You witnessed it with your own eyes. Well, it was not destroyed. It escaped into the sun, and there it sits as I write this, growing stronger, soaking up our sun's energy into itself and biding its time until its servants are ready for its return. When that happens I fear nothing will be able to stop it, and what no one bothers to see is that when that happens, not only the Silver Millennium will be destroyed but all life in this system. _

_It has happened before. Ours is not the first system this monster has fed on, and discarded like a bone picked clean in its wake as it moved on to its next meal, its next conquest. _

_We must end it here. I don't know how, but I trust if anyone can find a way it is the Moon Queen herself. _

_So I beg you, if you still have any trust in me whatsoever, to believe everything I have to tell you. Your life, and the life of the Moon Kingdom, depend on it, though I fear it may already be too late for Zoisite and myself. Already my master serves the darkness and does its bidding. It took him and filled him with its delusions so fully that I could not reach him—I was too weak and blinded by my devotion, by my unwillingness to believe—and now I have become infected myself. This is the price I pay for my devotion. At this very moment I can feel it growing within me, _changing _me, as though within this shell of flesh and blood is growing a pupae of my true self, a self so dark and so full of malcontent I cannot even look into it for fear that in that black hole I will catch a glimpse of the monster I will become, the terrible, inhuman evil for which I will be responsible if you do nothing. _

_That is why I am begging you with all the goodness that is left within this body to help me, Mercury—to help _both of us_, Zoisite and myself. If you do not destroy . . ._

——

"What are you doing in here? I've hardly seen you all day."

Zoisite's voice startled Bunbo, who hadn't even been aware of his approach. He froze, daring not to turn, though he could feel his master's eyes on him from the doorway of the study. Without interrupting his strokes but for a heartbeat, he said nonchalantly, "Nothing much. Just a bit of accounting," and hoped with all his person that Zoisite would believe him and leave him alone.

There were probably better excuses he could have given in hindsight.

"Really?" Zoisite said. "I was not aware there were any inaccuracies that needed correcting."

"Yes, but it never hurts to make sure. You know, with such an increase in the shipyards' production, it would be all too easy to get scammed by suppliers. . . ." Bunbo bent his head in a studious manner, but he was stuck. If he moved to cover his letter then his lie would be exposed, and yet if he did nothing—

Zoisite strode quickly to his side and snatched up the paper from beneath Bunbo's grasping hands. The boy could feel his heart leap in his chest, flooding his face and armpits with a burst of hot blood, but it was not mortification that he felt. It was a genuine fear. His lie was bound to be exposed now, but that was the least of his concerns.

He glanced up warily, wishing that in all his power to see future events he would have been able to see this coming, that he could go back in time and say something else, hide his work before his master even had a chance to catch him at it. As Zoisite's eyes flew silently over the lines Bunbo had written about him, all the boy could do was wait with growing dread as Zoisite's expression changed from one of mild amusement to shock, then to a genuine anger.

Before Bunbo could react, Zoisite had seized the book of loose papers that sat on the corner of his desk. He pulled out sheet after sheet, and Bunbo knew what he was seeing on them that upset him so clearly: the professions of love to Mercury and the betrayal of all the secrets of Zoisite's life that the young king had thought protected in a tacit vow of trust between himself and his apprentice. Never mind that Bunbo had not sent a single one; it was the intent that provoked him now, as he jerked open the drawers of the desk, and pulled out and tore open more letters, tinged slightly by age but folded and addressed as if ready for the mail carriers.

Was he looking for that one sign that they got through to their addressee, that one letter Bunbo had received in turn that would have sealed the conspiracy? He would not find it; it did not exist. But even that fact did not allow Bunbo any hope Zoisite might be willing to turn a blind eye to this offense.

The offense of his final letter, and that last sentence, that last order to Mercury he had been unable to finish.

When those green eyes suddenly snapped from the page to Bunbo's, they were like daggers the way they pierced the boy. "What is the meaning of this?" Zoisite breathed. "Is this your idea of a joke, Bunbo?"

Bunbo grasped for the words to explain himself but could find none. Still, he opened his mouth to respond, to bide for time, "Sir, I can explain—"

He did not see the blow coming. But when the back of Zoisite's hand connected with Bunbo's cheek it was so hard it whipped him from his seat. The chair fell over with a crash, dumping him unceremoniously on the rug. His neck ached and his hip would bruise from the impact, but his face was on fire.

When Bunbo's vision cleared he saw a dark spot in the rug's rich pattern that had not been there before. Through the burning in his face he felt a wetness on his lip. He flicked his tongue over it and tasted blood.

The letters that spanned back five years fell chaotically through the air and scattered across the rug as Zoisite tossed them down. All except that last one, their last hope, that remained crumpled tight in his fist.

"She was right," he muttered as though to himself. "She was right about you all along."

"Sir," Bunbo somehow managed to find his voice, "I don't know what you're talking about. Who—"

"You did betray me after all. Falling in love with . . . And I suppose she returns your feelings, does she? That's why she had to keep refusing me all those years. . . . I trusted you, I loved you both so much, and all this time you were going behind my back. God, this explains everything now. . . ."

"It isn't like that at all."

Zoisite rounded on him at that. "Don't _lie to me!_" he said through gritted teeth, grabbing Bunbo by the jacket collar and pulling him close. The seams digging sharply into Bunbo's armpits brought fresh tears of pain to his eyes, but Zoisite's were remarkably clear and brilliant as they searched the boy's for one glimmer of the truth he needed. "I've given you everything you could ever want, I made you more than you could have ever been peddling herbs and snake-oils to broke peasants—all because I thought you knew my soul. I've given you the honor of serving your empire under my roof, let you live like a prince, and what have you done with that station but steal what little happiness I've ever asked for in life away from me, all the while pretending to be my faithful servant. Faithful! That's what breaks my heart about this, Bunbo," he forced a laugh, his fingers tightening around the silk, "that I was such a fool, such an _idiot_ to think all this time you actually loved _me_, you ungrateful little—"

"Did you even read the letter?" Bunbo shouted back at him. "Nothing ever happened between me and Mercury. She's loved you, and only you, since day one! And you're the one who's been too selfish and stupid to appreciate her feelings for what they are!"

Zoisite's hands trembled as their grip on Bunbo tightened, and the boy could see the muscles in his jaw clenching just as tightly as his face paled in the lamplight, but still he went on.

"I've been nothing but loyal to you all this time in spite of it, and now I'm paying for all my good intentions with this evil. You're so far gone you don't even recognize what it's done to you, that 'great master' you serve, what a monster it's made of you—what it's making of us—_all of us!_ What about your Prince? You swore once you'd lay down your life in his service—"

"Don't preach to me of service!" Zoisite bellowed back. "You make me sick, you traitorous—"

"Listen to yourself! You've betrayed your own Prince—and for what? What promises can Beryl really make you but total annihilation?"

"We will not be annihilated. Our master has promised us victory and a united Earth for our troubles—"

"_It's a lie!_ Why can you not see that? She'll destroy us all once she's finished with us, if we don't kill ourselves first—"

"_Shut up!_" The slap of the palm of his hand against Bunbo's cheek rang in the boy's ears before he could register the sting in his flesh. Zoisite grabbed Bunbo's arm with his other hand, the tips of his fingers digging into the boy hard enough to bruise even as he raised his right hand and threatened another blow. "What would you know about it? You've behaved nothing but spoiled since I rescued you from your dead-end circumstances, and you pretend to know what it means to sacrifice! You have no idea how much I've suffered, how much I've had to struggle just to prove myself—"

"And you'd just let the whole world go to hell and worse because of what happened to you?"

"Why not! Is it any less than what I deserve?"

"No! No one deserves this! Why can't you see that?" But even as Bunbo said that he knew the answer. Zoisite had no idea what he was saying; Metallia had clouded his mind.

Or did he? The fear, the abject terror in his green eyes as the meaning of Bunbo's words began to sink in, the truth of them that he had been trying so hard not to see all this time—it was there plain as day when Bunbo said, "Metallia's made you a monster! You know that, deep down you know it! And it terrifies you, what you've become. I know because I'm becoming one too, all because of you—_for_ you!"

Those words earned him another blow, a cuff half on the ear that had it humming, and even that could not quell Zoisite's rage. Or was it the terror that made him do it? the boy wondered, as Zoisite shook him violently. "Shut up, I said!"

"That is why I had to write that, to save us from making this monumental mistake! Do not pretend you don't know just as well as I do what she has planned. Get a hold of yourself, I beg you! We cannot let it end this way!"

"Shut your damn mouth, Bunbo, or, God help me, I'll do it for you! You want to see for yourself what happens to those who cross me?"

His master was lost to him now, Bunbo knew. He could feel it in the way the air chilled around them with the intensity of Zoisite's ire. Was it that he refused to hear the truth, or that he had become so inured to this evil, grown so used to justifying its presence within himself that he could not? It does not matter which anymore, a voice whispered in Bunbo's mind; he will not hear you. He will sooner kill you than believe what you say about him is true. And for a flash, Bunbo believed he actually would.

For a flash, he actually thought that might be for the best.

As though reading Bunbo's mind, something resontated inside Zoisite just as soon as he had uttered those last words. His eyes went wide with sudden horror as he stared at Bunbo, who showed none of the fear he must have felt at everything his own master threatened to do to him, as though the boy already accepted it. It was _through_ Bunbo he stared, at some reflection of himself in the boy's dark eyes, some reflection of the past and a man he thought he had killed years ago—that he should have killed that first night the knife and all the power to use it had come to be in _his_ hands—who now stared back at him from within the reflection of his own green eyes, that man's words echoing back to him through the years in the ricochet of his own voice off these intimate walls.

He let go of Bunbo's arm and took a step back from him as though the boy were death itself. Zoisite cast a glance around them at the scattered sheafs of paper as though seeing them for the first time; and even when his gaze once again landed on Bunbo, it was with an edge that was only a dulled vestige of that rage which had seized Zoisite so completely only moments ago.

"Do not think I'm finished with you," he spat before making a hasty exit.

When Bunbo was alone, just another scattered thing on the Persian rug, he put the heel of his hand to his burning cheek, and wiped the blood from his lip with the cuff of his sleeve. Even with the door of the study left flung wide open, never could Bunbo remember feeling so disoriented nor so trapped in all his life.

There was only one option left to him now.

——

Outside the sunlight beat mercilessly down on the shipyards of Bamiyan, but this deep underground only the light of his lantern penetrated the total darkness. Bunbo's footsteps resonated eerily in the hallway so completely devoid of life, echoing in some far off chamber civilization had forgotten about, where it pooled and roiled back upon itself like the chanting of the Buddhist monks who had once inhabited this place, back when their religion was still young.

Existence truly was a transient thing, and nothing told that better than this darkness that threatened to swallow up even the petty light of his lantern.

At last Bunbo found the door to which he had been given directions. His master's instructions to him resurfaced in his mind, put there like a spell under hypnosis as Zoisite turned a large ruby absently in his fingers. It was an old storeroom, he told Bunbo, barred by an iron door with modern fittings. The key would turn easily; he shouldn't be fooled by the appearance of the place.

But why couldn't he go himself? Bunbo wanted to know. Zoisite had glared at him as though stunned at his audacity. "Because I put her there to rot," he said, as though that would explain everything.

The door did swing open easily once unlocked. A repulsive smell assaulted Bunbo as soon as it did so, one which he recognized instantly as the smell of human waste and rotting flesh. He put the sleeve of his free hand over his nose and mouth as he choked on the stench, coughed to clear his airways of the foulness of it. He peered into the darkness through the tears that automatically came to his eyes, but he could see nothing in the space before him, not even the far walls. Nor could he catch any sound of life within.

"Yasha?" he called out into it. "If you are there, you're released. Your master commands your presence."

Then he heard it, a stirring of fabric that crackled like dry parchment. A chill ran down his spine but he held his ground, and chased away the silly superstitions that rose within him when a voice croaked back, "He has called for me? Has he finally come to his senses, then?"

Something in the way it was said made Bunbo entirely too conscious of his bruised cheek in the lantern light. But despite his misgivings, he squinted into the dark. "Come toward the light."

Slowly a shape resolved itself out of the blackness, moving toward him with aching slowness like an actor coming down toward the stage of a noh play. Silver hair as fine as spider thread gleamed in his lantern's light, and then from beneath it appeared a face so unnaturally white and lopsided Bunbo managed only a glimpse before the lantern slipped from his hand.

With a muttered curse, he shook himself fast enough to catch it, but he dared not look back up again. He feared if he did, in morbid fascination of how the dungeon's flesh-hungry bacteria had so eagerly attacked that once perfect doll face, he might never be able to clear his mind of that image again.

Instead, he held out the actor's mask that Zoisite had bid him take along. Now he understood what it was for. "Put this on," he told Yasha, keeping his eyes stubbornly down.

"Am I so horrible to look at?" she said, yet her voice lacked any trace of self-pity.

Bunbo thought that was only the half of it, but he answered simply, "Yes." He jerked his hand back when the figure took hold of the mask and tried not to let his revulsion show in his voice when he said, "Now follow me—but not too close." He felt tainted already by their proximity.

"As you wish," came the response, now muffled behind the mask; and Bunbo turned, feeling like Orpheus only too eager to ascend out of this hell.

At least there was some comforting amount of certainty in the one that awaited him above ground.

II.Silver Millennium

The face of the Moon loomed dark in its nighttime before Endymion, only the spiderweb outlines of the city sparkling with lamplight and reflected starlight on the edge of the sea, but still he pushed his ship to its limit. The controls felt awkward in his hands—even with all the practice he had had, all the simulations he had run, it was quite another thing to have an entire vessel under his command and his alone—but the sense of urgent purpose gave him the confidence to make it. He would make it to the Palace.

He had to reach the Princess Serenity. There was no other alternative, and there was no room for failure. She had to be warned of what was coming. Even if he could not go to the Queen herself, her daughter could relay his message in time for them to protect themselves, in time to come to some sort of agreement. At very least he could save his Princess from harm.

So long as the Palace guard were too busy to shoot down his vessel.

He had not told his guardians about his plans. Even Nephrite had in the end supported the idea of war, if only reluctantly, and no matter how warm Zoisite's words of concern to him were, Endymion could not escape the suspicion that the best interests they held in their hearts were no longer the same.

But it was Kunzite's words that continued to echo in his brain. "Serenity's spies are everywhere," he had entreated Endymion, as he might have done when they were children growing up in the same house. "Even now the Moonpeople watch our every move, finding something to distrust in everything we do. We cannot sit for this, Endymion."

"And if we declare war on them because of it," he had shot back, "then we are justifying their suspicions!"

Kunzite had merely turned his eyes at what he must have perceived to be his Prince's naivety; but his words were no less filled with conviction when he said, "It isn't that we _want_ to go to war. No one wants what happened to the other planets to happen here. But if we do nothing, then what message do we send? That we concede our sovereignty to the Silver Millennium at their every beck and call?"

"Of course not—"

"I know that as well as you do, but . . ." His pale eyes were filled with concern, but even then Endymion could not know if it was real, or a charade. "Can you calm your people when they are crying so desperately for action?"

His words rang in the Prince's mind like a dare: "Can you, Endymion?"

And the people of the Moon? he had wanted to ask. Were they not also desperate? No, it was blood that the people of Earth, his people, were calling for, and it frightened Endymion. It made him push the ship whose engines were already at their maximum output that much faster. He did not want to betray his own world, but what choice did he have now but to go to the people they perceived to be their enemy? Maybe it was true what Kunzite said, that he was powerless to stop their madness; but he could still do _something._

And for that . . . he had to try.

He aimed for a valley in the gently rolling hills behind the Moon Capital, where the tough lunar heathers made a hard pillow, but a pillow nonetheless, for his rough landing among the rocky landscape. He felt something crunch in the process, heard the ship groan beneath him as it settled to a stop, and knew there was not enough fuel to return him successfully to Earth, but none of those matters concerned him at the present.

He could worry about them later, after he had fulfilled his mission. And after he had seen Serenity.

He took up his sword and some provisions he could easily pocket and set off immediately for the city. He would only need enough to get him there; and as he would have to keep a low profile, the less there was to slow him down the better.

And, of course, he took the golden locket with the enamel face the Princess had given him when last they parted, hidden safe in a breast pocket. It had seen him safely this far; and though its machinery was quiet for now, the simple, tinny melody it made now seemed locked within his person, a mantra repeating, guiding him like a compass toward the fulfillment of his duty. Toward Serenity.

He could not be sure how long it was before he reached the outskirts of the Capital. Tents he had never seen before provided a new moat around the city, where refugees from other planets gathered in what finery they had rescued from their dying worlds to celebrate the new moon. Even among the sorrow of their loss and displacement they feasted on what rations were available, and danced to their own music in the makeshift squares between the rows of shelters, smiles planted resolutely on their bright faces and fragile laughter ringing in the air. Endymion's heart went out to them as he slipped unnoticed among the crowd. They were determined to cope with the tragedies that had so dramatically reshaped their lives, and emerge from the wreckage with hope for a better future.

And they were so ignorant of what was stirring on Earth, among the villages just like theirs, in the forums of the major cities—what resentment for them existed on that blue world in such sharp contrast to this stubborn jollity.

He ducked into an alley as footsteps chased him down the street, only to see a group of costumed young men and women racing to join the Palace celebrations rather than the guard he had feared had spotted him. While his heartbeat gradually slowed, he looked up at the starry sky, and at the full Earth that hung suspended in it. How peaceful it looked from here, he could not help marveling, and how unchanged from the first time he had gazed up at it from an alien lunar Palace as a young boy two decades ago.

Would anyone here ever suspect that the united Kingdom of Earth they had once dreamed of was quickly becoming a reality only out of hatred for them?

It was not difficult to find a way into the Palace proper. Endymion knew the areas where the guards would be stationed, and he knew which parts of the Palace would be all but abandoned at this time by the merrymaking. He stuck to the fringes of the parties, darting between the shadows of the colonnades as he scanned the crowd for the Princess and her guardians. He wanted desperately to see her, but he knew he must be cautious of her companions as well. They would recognize him immediately, and he was not so sure they would keep silent about his presence here if they caught him.

What Endymion needed was a disguise. He was lucky. Many of the revelers had hoped to lose themselves in anonymity tonight with masks; and as he spotted one that had been laid aside in neglect by its owner, his heartbeat quickened at the opportunity it provided. He knew he could not afford to pass it up.

He circled the edge of the patio and leaped down into the bushes that surrounded it, crouching low beside the stone banister until he came to where the mask had been laid. It was a simple white thing that covered the eyes, but it might be enough. If he covered the shoulder pads of his armor with his cloak he might pass as one of them; there was nothing about his uniform that was a dead giveaway to his identity or even his nationality, and there were others here wearing their swords at their sides as part of their costume.

At very least it would give him that extra bit of freedom with which he might find Serenity. He had come this far without incident; and he had to see her tonight.

——

Behind them, the throne room stood empty; while before it, out the doors and down the great steps, a crowd filled the courtyards of the Middle Kingdom Capital like none Zoisite had ever seen. The soldiers of Earth stood ramrod straight in their rows, swords at their sides or bows at their backs and halberds in their hands, while above the rooftops the black warships that would take them to the Moon stood like the magnificent dragons of legend around the city, their flags waving in the summer wind like tongues of fire.

Between the regiments of troops, in stark contrast to their discipline and uniformity, were the commoners who had joined their cause. No celebration had the power to draw such a crowd, only their united sense of duty and outrage, as they raised their tools and their voices for their Prince.

It was unfortunate that they were to be disappointed.

"It has been confirmed, lordships," an officer came to tell Zoisite and the others, his manner stoic even as he struggled to catch his breath from his run there. "The ship that was stolen from our shipyards . . . it was his highness, the Prince Endymion, who was piloting it."

"He took off into space without alerting us—without taking the proper precautions? Does he even know how to fly?" Zoisite glanced around at his comrades. "Has he completely lost his senses?"

Nephrite smiled a lazy smile from his seat, and raised his head from his fist. "More likely he thinks we have. Endymion isn't naive. He knows what's happening here on Earth, and he will see this as his last chance to prevent it."

"Then you're saying he would betray us for the Moon Queen?" Jadeite said, unable to completely hide his snarl as he stepped toward the other. "I don't believe it."

Kunzite's quiet cough behind them staid any further debate on the subject, however. It would be foolish for them to break into petty infighting now, after they had accomplished so much, but the road ahead of them was still fraught with uncertainty. So his gaze seemed to say as they turned to face him; but it was the woman who stood behind who had so thoroughly captured their attention and stilled their tongues. "It's about time we made the announcement," Kunzite told them flatly. "The crowd is calling for their Prince."

"And what will they do when we cannot deliver him?" Zoisite asked as his eyes followed Kunzite, but the other said nothing in response.

He merely turned at the door and made a genuflecting gesture to the woman, who answered for him: "What they came here to do."

She strode out onto the porch then, her head held high and the most triumphant smile on her dark lips so that it seemed to the four officers who rose and dutifully followed her that she was basking in the rabble as though it were the warmth of the summer sun itself. There was nothing in her hands, and she wore no jewelry; she stood before them not as the princess she had once been but as a simple peasant girl, in a long skirt and a blouse that fell just off her shoulders. And yet there was a stateliness about her, a wildness to her countenance and her hair, that made her seem like a goddess of the wilderness—that made even Zoisite wait on bated breath for her words.

The crowd was bolstered by her familiar presence and that of the shitennou, but that did not stop them from begging what they came for. Even as the woman raised a hand for silence, scattered voices continued to ring out, "Where is Prince Endymion? Won't he guide us in what to do next?"

"Your Prince is not here," Beryl told them in a voice that overwhelmed every other noise, and her words brought an almost immediate silence. "As we speak," she continued, "he is being held hostage by spacemen in the Moon Kingdom. They know their own laws as well as we do, that no Earthman shall be permitted to step freely on lunar soil, but they bewitched and kidnapped him nonetheless, and now he is their captive."

The crowd grew uneasy at this revelation. Their Prince's reluctance to go to war they had expected. Ministers who would speak for him they had expected. But none had dreamed of this. None had expected this once silent figurehead would be the one to break such ominous news either. Anxious chatter broke out among even the soldiers' ranks like the rustling of leaves.

"It is obvious what their intent was," Beryl's voice boomed over them. "The Crown Prince of all of Earth is a fine trophy for the Moon Queen to have caught herself. With him in her clutches, she believes, she has us at the mercy of her every whim. What would the Earthmen dare to refuse her when their Prince's life hangs in the balance?"

Zoisite glanced out at the faces as she spoke, squinting against the midday sun. Some appeared close to tears at the thought of Endymion locked up in some lunar prison that he knew did not exist, while others' mouths were set in grim lines, trying their hardest to hold back their anger.

"It is nothing short of blackmail!" Beryl continued. "And of the most grievous kind. But what shall we do about it? Surely we cannot just give into her demands, and let her get away with this outrage unpunished?"

No answer came readily. No one seemed to know. Or, rather. . . .

"Why do you keep quiet? You all know what to do! There can only be one option! But she has frightened you into silence. I can see it on your faces: all of you are too afraid of the consequences to voice what it is you _want_ to do, what we _need_ to do. Don't you see that is only what she wants? Will you let her win so easily? If you let her take your Prince with impunity there is no telling what she will do next! Steal your livelihoods, your children, your sovereignty—it will never end unless we put a stop to it here and now.

"That is why we are going to war!" Beryl shouted, her arm raised and her finger pointed like an arrow at the blue sky where the new moon was hiding.

Their great master had truly possessed her, Zoisite thought at once with dread and adoration as he studied her from the corner of his eye. His comrades could sense it too—Metallia was here among them, giving Beryl this inspiring presence, making her shine like the sun itself, the meaning of her words both irresistible and scorching as the sun's rays themselves.

"The ships are waiting. As I look around at you all, I see your arms already raised for vengeance. And you will have it. We leave tonight for the Moon Palace, and we show no mercy until we have what we came for. Before the crescent moon rises we shall bring Serenity to her knees, and then she shall see once and for all that the Kingdom of Earth is not to be trifled with. For this offense her kingdom shall not be spared. We shall grind the Silver Millennium into dust so that never again will its like be able to tyrannize this world!"

Cheers broke out among the crowd at that—reluctant cheers, but nonetheless the mob was in some form of agreement. They could not allow themselves to be tyrannized, and moment by moment it mattered less and less who was accused of the crime as more and more joined in.

Sensing their stubborn hesitation, Beryl altered her tactic.

"Think of your Prince. Remember his love for all his subjects, and holding that in your heart, trust in me in his absence, follow me while his command remains captive. The whole Moon will quake with our footsteps and our voices so that everyone in Serenity's palace shall know our power as a nation, as a planet, when we come to free our Prince. No one shall remain deaf to our cries, that we fight for Earth and for Prince Endymion!"

Those, apparently, were the magic words. And as the crowd swelled like one living creature, united in their new cause, Zoisite felt himself moved along with it. He could not be sure his Prince would appreciate his name being used as a rallying cry, but seldom had he felt himself quite so proud as at this moment to call himself an Earthman.

But a wry smile touched his lips as he looked at his Queen, her arms raised in triumph as the masses roiled before her, their bare skin shining in the sunlight. It made him wonder if these people really understood how far they needed this to go, or if it would be all too easy once confronted with the decadence of the lunar court to tear the whole thing down, if their anger would then light a fire beneath the Moon Queen's throne so fierce it would consume everything in sight.

If he had learned anything in his lifetime of human nature, then it was that he had nothing to worry about. He would not be disappointed. And neither would their new Queen.

——

"Please _try_ to smile tonight," Venus said as she came up beside the Princess Serenity on the balcony. "I know how difficult it is, but think of them."

She pointed her chin at the couples on the dance floor, none of whom paid their watching Princess a mote of attention.

"They need their Princess's support—now more than ever. Her happiness is their happiness."

They looked content enough as it was to Serenity, however. "Those are my mother's words. She sent you to find me, didn't she?"

When Venus said nothing, Serenity gave a quiet sigh.

"Surely you know," Venus said, "how your continued silence breaks her heart. You are her only daughter."

"I do know. And I know what you say is true," the Princess told her companion in a small voice. "Honestly I do. But don't you find it a bit hypocritical, this advice, when it comes from so true a friend who knows my heart like her own?"

Her words touched something inside Venus, and she put her hand over her heart as though clutching something that was about to suddenly reveal itself against her will. As she did so, Serenity could not help but notice the crude twine bracelet around the wrist of that hand that contrasted so strongly with the fine, buttercream crepe of her gown. She had someone she was separated from as well, twice now, and yet she told Serenity to smile?

"Come down with me," Venus said, but she did not show any of her trouble in her voice. "Mars and the others are down there waiting for you. We will keep you from the press of the crowds if it becomes too much to handle. But we are all concerned for you, Princess."

Serenity turned to her then, and she was ashamed that Venus had to see the tears in her eyes. But so long as the full Earth hung in the zenith like such a bright chandelier she could think of nothing else but who awaited her there.

"Go on without me," she said, taking Venus's hands in both of hers. "I will be down shortly, but do not hold yourselves back on my account. I only need a little time to think, and prepare myself."

Though it was needless to say, there was nothing to hold her guardians back from. None of them had much heart for merrymaking these past several months either.

"All right," Venus whispered, nodding as though to make herself feel the words. "I will go. But do not let yourself wallow in your thoughts for too long. For our sakes at very least." The way her hands reluctantly slid from her Princess's grasp was reminder enough of the vows she had taken decades ago, that with her very existence she would not let anything befall her Serenity, that she would always be there for support when her Princess needed her—for whatever her Princess needed of her.

But could Venus protect her from heartbreak of all things?

Serenity watched her go, waiting as the clicking of her heels on the stone paving gradually faded into the sound of the merrymaking below, and hoping that her guardian and closest friend knew how much she appreciated her loyalty.

When she turned back to the party, however, Serenity was struck by a feeling she could not ignore that someone was watching her. Her heart leaped in her chest and she fought to catch her breath, but it was not with fear—unless only the terror that she should miss in the crowd the one face she desired most to see. Frantically she searched the revelers below, hopeful for a glimpse of that raven hair, those sparkling black eyes, that radiant smile that made her spirit soar, but she could not find it.

But I know it's him, she said to herself. Endymion. . . . He's come for me. He's here. I just know it!

She picked up her skirts and spun away from the balcony, hurrying as fast as she could for the steps that would take her down toward the party. But she did not plan on joining the celebrations. As she looked wildly left and right, her only care was that she might see him again, even if only one concrete glimpse among the crowd.

She hesitated in the hallway, pulse racing as she braced herself to throw herself into their midst, when she heard someone whisper her name at her back.

She turned around to see a dark figure stepping out from the shadow of a column.

A sheepish smile touched his lips and he slowly removed the mask from his eyes. . . .

Serenity could not speak. She dared not. She felt like there were wings on her ankles as she ran toward him, and the next moment her arms were around his neck, his around her waist, and she remembered with a pang of regret that she had to breathe as her lips crushed against his.

There were tears in his eyes when he pulled away, and wiped them from her own with his thumb. "My god," he breathed, "I can hardly believe I'm really here with you now. I was beginning to think I might never see you again."

"As was I. These past months I could think of nothing I wanted more than to be by your side once again." His breast heaved beneath her cheek as she pressed herself to him, and he showered her crown with urgent kisses. "But why have you come? You know it isn't allowed."

"The vessel that landed outside the city limits," a man's voice suddenly rang through the hall, "our scouts have confirmed it: it's an Earth ship." The sound of hurrying feet and the jangling of arms followed soon after, and close by. Serenity's heart leaped again, but this time in panic. The guards!

Endymion heard them too, and before Serenity could think of what to do he had pulled her back with him into the shadows. She did not trust herself to speak, did not think she even could as the men passed by where the two had just stood. As she pressed herself against Endymion, she only hoped that the whiteness of her gown did not give them away. May the gods strike her down if that happened.

"They must be around here somewhere," the captain was saying to the others, and they could see his hand upon the pommel of the sword that swung by his side. "We must find them at once! Search everywhere, but try not to alert the revelers. The Queen would not condone a panic. But above all, we must protect the Princess! If they have come for anything, you can bet it will be her and what she carries. Do not fail: the fate of your country depends on it!"

Serenity shut her eyes tight and prayed as they passed, but at the same time the questions the captain's words had sparked flashed like lightning through her mind. Has Mother sent them after us? Does she know Endymion is here?

If she finds him . . . by the gods, if that happens, what will she do to him?

"Come on!" Endymion was pulling her in the direction opposite of where the guards had gone, shaking her from such dreadful thoughts. "There isn't much time. Seeing as they've already found my ship, I don't know how long I will have until someone catches us, but I have to speak to you before that happens."

"About what?" She looked up to see his face resolute, his brows knit with worry and—an emotion she had never witnessed in him before—fear. It filled her with such a dread it made her shiver in the warm night air. "Endymion, what are you talking about? What are you even doing here when you know how dangerous it is?"

His gaze remained focused straight ahead, but she saw him visibly steel himself before he told her: "My father's ministers have declared war on the Silver Millennium. I've done all I can but they won't listen to me, and as we speak the navy is gathering. They're making preparations."

"Preparations for what?"

Serenity felt like something had grabbed her heart in a tight, icy grip when he answered her.

"An invasion."

——

Something wasn't right tonight.

Mercury could sense it, though she could not explain in any concrete, quantitative terms why she felt that way. Perhaps it was something in the atmosphere that made the laughter and the music around her ring with a bitter note, like something out of a nightmare, never quite normal or clear. Maybe it was the quiet tapping that had slowly worked its way into her consciousness, transcending the randomness it had first appeared to be and steadily coalescing into something more and more regular, like a signal being tapped into the stonework around her.

No, it was definitely a signal. She could barely hear it over the talk of the other party goers, but the sound was certainly coming in regular intervals—the sound of three pebbles hitting the stone in rapid succession, in rounds exactly sixty seconds apart.

Mercury trained her ear and eased herself out of the crowd in the direction from which they seemed to be coming. A couple laughing a little too much to be sober passed her and she flashed them a smile, then picked up her skirts when they were gone and hurried toward the sound.

It took her to a balcony somewhat secluded from the jubilee, where wisteria vines twisted round an ancient arbor, and she could swear she had been there before. Before she could think of when, three pebbles went flying, hitting the side of a column; and she followed their trajectory back toward its source, over the edge of the balcony behind.

She leaned over and nearly started to recognize the wide, black eyes peering back at her from the shadows below, from beneath thick brows that could have belonged to no one else. "Bunbo?" she whispered.

He started visibly just as much as she had inside—then turned to face her, the pebbles falling from his hands.

"Mercury," he breathed, "thank god you came—"

She cut him off before he could finish. "What are you doing here? Don't you know what they'll do to you if you're found. For crying out loud, you're an Earthman!"

"I know that. Believe me, I am all too aware."

"Is Zoisite with you? —And how did you even get here without the guard noticing?"

"I stowed away on the Prince's ship," he answered her, and even as he did she looked around instinctively for Endymion—and to make sure no one was nearby listening. "But never mind that," he said, drawing her eyes back. "I came because I have something urgent to tell you. It's of the utmost importance you listen to me carefully."

She stared back at him with her full attention, but Bunbo was not satisfied. He spied a place a little ways down where he could climb up into the flora and speak with her more intimately, and waved her down that way. [ When he was settled and they were merely inches apart instead of yards, he said to her, "Endymion is here for the same reason I am. We've run out of options and we have to warn the Moon Kingdom in any way we can. The Earth forces are planning to attack the Palace on the new moon."

Mercury could not believe the words he was saying. It had to be a joke, was her first thought; but it wasn't funny, nor was Bunbo the type to joke about anything half as dire. "But why would they do that?" she said when no other words presented themselves. "It doesn't make sense. The Moon is and always has been a peaceful nation. We were allies in the war—there are refugees here who still have nowhere else to go because of it!"

"And yet there is a growing number of those on Earth who feel that now is the time to make Serenity pay for her failures during the war."

"Don't they know they will only be repeating the same mistakes?" When Bunbo lowered his eyes and did not answer her question, only reinforcing the futility that she suddenly felt in her heart, she said, "Can't Zoisite and the others do something to stop it?"

She feared she already knew the answer before he said it.

"My master is one of those riling the masses. . . ."

Mercury put her hand over her mouth. Suddenly she felt ill.

"He has been changed by the darkness that invaded our system and started this whole mess. They all have, and now everything they do is skewed by its evil. They call it their master, and they serve it like a god. It and Queen Beryl."

"This is too much," Mercury breathed. "You're saying that thing is still alive—"

"It went into the sun, where it has been slowly rebuilding its strength with solar energy. But it craves something more . . . _alive_ to sustain it. It plans to reunite with the Earth navy in space—here, in lunar orbit—and when it does it will be stronger than anything we've seen before—"

"If what you're saying is true. . . ." She refused to believe it. "Then Venus was destroyed for nothing!" And she could not accept that.

Bunbo grabbed the arm she leaned on the banister in both his hands, making her jump. "I know it doesn't make any sense! I know it isn't right, there's no justice in it, but this is an enemy that doesn't operate by any sense of natural law or order. It wants to destroy us all just because it can—because our suffering will only make it stronger! It is a parasite, a cancer living to feed and nothing else, moving from one star system to the next, soaking up its life energy until there's nothing left at all, and everyone is either too blinded by Beryl's lies to see the truth of that or doesn't care—"

"Your hand!" Mercury gasped as she just noticed, and that made Bunbo pause.

He pulled away one of his hands and stared at the palm, at the dried blood that had caked in the creases and marred her skin. "I'm sorry," he said now in a small, shamed voice. "I didn't mean to get it on you."

"I don't care about that." Why was he apologizing to her? "I only meant, what happened? Why are you bleeding, Bunbo?"

"You wouldn't understand." He stared at the scratches in fascination, as though unsure how they got there himself, even as he answered, "I didn't want to do it, but it was the only thing I could think of—I tried everything else, and this was the last thing—the pain . . . I thought that might keep it at bay for a little while longer. . . ."

"Bunbo, what are you talking about?"

"What I'm becoming."

Mercury started then. She did not consciously fear him, but her body reacted to his words against her will and fought to get away from him. He sensed he would lose her if he let up in the slightest, and so the hand that remained tightened around her wrist, as though he just remembered he still had her in his grasp.

"Listen, Mercury," he said, his voice wavering with an intensity she had never heard before. "I have a confession to make to you. I should have warned you about this sooner, back when I knew what was coming and there was still something that could have been done about it. But I didn't. I tried to send word to you before but . . . damn it all, I was weak, I know, and afraid, and maybe I'll never stop blaming myself for that, but you have to listen to me. Now, before I can't control this thing any longer—because I love you, Mercury!" he said when she started to shake her head. "I've loved you since the day I first saw you."

His confession seemed to Mercury like a slap to the face. She sensed the blasphemy he obviously thought that was in his tone and it made her heart ache. All this time, she thought. Had he felt this way all this time, while she had treated him like a servant, like a shy child who rarely spoke to her, there merely to amuse her in his master's absence, and let her win at their games of strategy and logic when she knew he could predict her moves?

Had he predicted her reaction to all this right now, that she would have doubted his sincerity like this? God, the thought filled her with so much shame—and a queer admiration all the more bitter for its coming so late, too late to do any good.

"I know it isn't my place," Bunbo said when she was silent. "You're in love with my master, and until recently I've never doubted that his heart belonged to you. Do you even know how many times I've tried to write almost these exact same words? For me to have the gall to even dream—"

"Bunbo, don't." She shook her head. Did he not realize that he was hurting her by talking like this?

"But if only out of love for _him_," he said to her eyes, "Mercury, please. . . . You _have_ to believe what I say! You _have_ to do it, because it's your duty—"

"Please, whatever you're going to say, don't say it!" She grabbed the hand that held her in both of hers, raising them toward her face as she leaned closer and entreated him. But she was no longer afraid—not of him, anyway, no matter what he said about himself. Only of what he asked of her. "I _can't_ do it. Not what you're asking."

"You can, and you must. You're Sailor Mercury." A smile touched his lips at the kindness of her touch, but it was full of a pain she could only begin to understand. "You were born in this time for a reason, and that was to protect your Princess and the Imperium Silver Crystal, and all the power and the goodness that is in them. You must not forget that, no matter what happens. And that means you must defeat the enemy, no matter what form it takes. I won't be able to control myself much longer, and when Metallia gets here. . . ."

He took a deep breath. "Zoisite, he . . . did something to me, changed something inside me, and now I fear the next time you see me, I will be a monster. When that happens, you must not hesitate. You _must_ kill me—you must kill us both, because if you don't we will surely kill you. There are no two ways about that. We won't be able to stop ourselves. And if I ever hurt you, princess. . . ."

He swallowed and his voice was strong, but she saw the tears sparkling in his eyes. "You can't let that happen. Promise me you won't let that happen."

"I can't," she said. How could she make a promise like that? And how could he be so cruel as to ask it? She wanted nothing more than to flee at the mere thought of this sweet boy, whom she had watched grow into the young man who stood before her, the most faithful friend she could have by her side, turning against all that was good. Turning against _her_. And now to say he loved her . . . and at such a time as this. . . . If he were transformed before her eyes into this monster he spoke of and tried even now to cut her down, would she even have the strength to stand against him?

But she could not flee. She could not even shake her head. And the words that suddenly rose up from deep inside her to beat on her throat, to tell him she loved him as well—she never recognized it until now, but she did—got stuck and bogged down with tears.

"Promise," he said again, stubbornly. His eyes were shining and a smile pulling at his lips as he raised her hands to them, softly; but his voice wavered even through his conviction as he spoke against her skin. Even as he accepted that she could never say the words he must have longed with all his being to hear. "I wasn't strong enough to resist it, but I believe in you, Mercury."

Then his hands were gone from hers, and he slipped away before she could say another word, let alone reach out to make him wait.

Leaving her with only his words, and the kiss on her hand, his only farewell fading away much too rapidly into oblivion with each passing moment she stood there as though struck dumb, too proud to even cry, and weighing heavier and heavier on her heart.

——

The Princess trembled as Endymion related to her the awful truth he had learned of his comrades, their schemes, and their plans for the Moon, and by the end of it she outright shook. Saying her name softly, Endymion reached out and pulled her into his arms, and that was when she lost her composure.

She sucked in her breath in a ragged sob against his chest, her brows furrowing in her struggle to believe and lips quivering as she tried to shape a response. "No," she said over and over. "No, it cannot be true. They can't . . . How could they do that, Endymion? How could they do that to us? What have we ever done to them?"

"They are no longer listening to the truth or reason, Selena." He pulled away to hold her at arm's length, difficult though that was. "They say it's revenge they want, they feel justified, but it's no longer about justice or righting wrongs. They are not themselves. I don't know what has gotten into them to make them act this way, but I can feel it. Something strong. Something evil that no mere logic can combat."

"What can we do?"

He felt more than heard her desperate whisper, and only hated that he didn't have a better answer.

"Tell your mother. Surely she can do something about this, use her powers. Maybe there is no longer enough time, maybe there never was, but if anyone could stop this it would be her. Somehow I know reasoning with them will accomplish nothing now. I've tried all I could think of, but Kunzite and the others. . . ."

He shook his head. How foolish he felt. They had already made up their minds long ago; it was he who had been standing in their way, and now he was here, on the Moon, having handed them the reigns to his kingdom in his absence.

He laid his cheek atop Serenity's head. "Pray," he told her. He was unable to think of anything else.

"There they are!" came a faint voice in the distance, but not faint nor distant enough.

They glanced up to see one of the guards looking their way and immediately ducked down behind the nearest statue. But Endymion knew it was useless to think they might not have been spotted after all. He could feel the footsteps coming closer through the reverberation in the stone around them, and the man's shouts left no further doubt in his mind: "It's Endymion. He has the Princess, just over there. There's no telling what he might do—"

"We've got to get out of here," Endymion hissed in her ear, not wishing to hear any more.

"Come this way," Serenity whispered back, gripping his hand tightly in hers and pulling him with her toward more cover. He need not have said that he trusted her completely. His Princess knew the Palace like no one else, not even the most learned guard—all its secrets, its ancient crannies and passage ways that others had forgotten about but had been her salvation in countless childhood adventures.

He only hoped they proved their salvation again.

"I know somewhere you can hide," she said as they fled, and he saw that she was leading him back toward the party.

"We won't make it if we have to go through all these people," he protested.

"No." She shook her head. "We'll shake the guards in the crowd. It's the best way."

Endymion had no choice but to trust her, so he pulled the stolen mask back down over his eyes, following closely on her heels as they threaded among couples dancing and groups laughing in wild conversation. As they went she murmured to him beneath the music and the hum of the crowd where he might go that her mother's guards might never find him, and where he might be safe until this whole mess blew over—

"I won't leave you," he interrupted her. "Not now."

She shook her head as she pulled him out of the way of a passing party. "You don't have a choice. I'm much too visible here. I'd become a liability to you. Besides, as long as the guards think I'm with you they'll never leave us alone. You made it this far on your own. I believe you can make to where I told you, and then I'll meet you there when it is safe."

He could not very well disagree with her logic, even as he saw her own hesitation in her eyes.

So he simply leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips in place of a response, and let that stand as affirmation enough. He did not allow himself to give into the niggling feeling of regret that this might be the last time he looked upon her freely, and it was through the filter of a mask. He flashed her a roguish smile to assure her he would be fine and let her go, racing back the way he had come, his cape billowing behind him as he took the stairs two at a time, ducking once he reached the bottom back into the safety of the crowd.

He did not see the pair of guards around the corner he turned, however, until it was too late. He started—as did they, at nearly having a man collide with them—but he knew in hindsight that if he had not, they might not have had the chance or cause to recognize him. "It's the Prince!" one said to the other, his eyes flying wide with recognition, and at that moment Endymion knew his chance was doomed.

He spun on his heels to run in the other direction, but the guards' shouts followed him, making revelers back out of his way with fearful gasps on their lips. The music did not stop, nor did the chatter completely die away, but all around him he could hear their whispers of "It's an Earthman!" and "What in the world is he doing here?" as they stepped back and away from him as though he were infectious. Didn't they know that he was not the one to fear? Couldn't they understand that he was the harmless one?

Nonetheless, his hand went instinctively to the pommel of his sword, and that was when a woman screamed.

His hand froze and he faltered in his flight for only a split second, but it was enough. A hand seized his shoulder roughly, spinning him as he fought to break free, then a pair of arms was pinning his to his sides. The ringing of sabers being drawn from the scabbards surrounded him over the grunts of the guards, and—

"No! Endymion!"

It was Serenity who was screaming, shouting his name, shouting for the guards to release him as she hurried down the steps toward him, seeming so fragile as she reached out to him, trying not to trip over her trailing gown lest she lose him forever.

"Serenity!" He tried to surge forward, but the guards had him now, and only used his momentum to pull him back, the crowds parting around them to allow them through all the faster.

"No! Let him go!" the Princess continued to entreat them. But Venus appeared at Serenity's elbow even as she was saying so, as did Mars, staring at him as the two fought only half-heartedly to restrain her, stunned by the anguish in her sobbed, "Endymion!"

He barely even had time to call her name once more as the guards dragged him away.

——

The city sat on the edge of the Sea like a silver dream, just as it always had, and yet this meeting filled Zoisite with naught but cold resentment. For too long had this nation remained unchanged and perfect; for too long had its residents lived in decadence and blissful ignorance of all that those on Earth had to toil and suffer in mortality like beasts so that they might live like gods.

If it was eternity the Moonpeople wanted, he thought to himself, then it was eternity they would bring the Moon Kingdom tonight, under Metallia's shadow—the still eternity befitting the dead.

"This will be the last night you ever see her like this," Kunzite muttered to his comrades through a wry smile, "so enjoy the view while you can."

Zoisite tired of it already.

When he stepped forward to go to the captain's side, Kunzite did not stop him. "Aim your cannons at the shipyards," he told the woman. "When the Moonmen see us coming, their first reaction will be to mount a defense from the air."

"Aye, sir."

She gestured to her officers, who quickly relayed the orders to the gunmen and the other ships. It was a tense few minutes while they approached firing range, during which time Zoisite could swear he felt Jadeite smile at his back, just as the junior officers manning the various controls leaned forward over their consoles in disbelief.

"Captain—"

"I know," the woman said, herself squinting as she looked out the tall windows. "Are you sure about this?" she asked Zoisite over her shoulder, and vicariously his comrades behind.

"Of course," Zoisite said, anticipating her trouble.

"But. . . . Forgive me, my lord, it's just that I don't see the guns that we were told would be protecting the city from outsiders. Nor do I see any _war_ships here—"

"Is there a problem, Captain?" Kunzite asked as he came up behind them. His hands were clasped behind his back, an easy smile on his lips, but by the cool tone of his voice he obviously did not anticipate there to be any such problem.

A moment later, the pieces fell in place for the captain as well, and she gave them a slow smile to match his. "None at all, your lordships." What she need not have said was that it should have come as no surprise that the Moon Queen would be completely incapable of retaliating against their forces. After the decimation of the recent war, it would be a wonder if she had the resources to even defend her Capital. And as for the innocents below them—

"I am a loyal servant of Queen Beryl," the captain reassured them with a hand to her breast. She was younger than they were, a headstrong daughter of some minor Earth court no doubt and eager to show-up her male colleagues. All of which made her perfectly ripe for Metallia's picking. "If her highness wishes no Moonman to escape the coming fire, then her will be done."

With a final, reverent, "Lordships," she bowed in deference to the Prince's guardians—now their Queen's representatives to all those gathered on the bridge.

Zoisite could not help his grin of satisfaction as he stepped forward to take her place. "All gunners prepare to fire on my mark," he said to the bridge, relishing the feel of the words echoing inside the ship and knowing this might be the last time he would have cause to say them.

"You realize as soon as we attack," Kunzite whispered to him, "word will reach the shipyards on the dark side of the Moon, and then Serenity's _real_ navy will be coming to greet us in full force."

"Metallia will meet them first," Zoisite answered without any trace of uncertainty. "Besides, by the time they arrive, the Queen may already be dead and her Silver Crystal and all its supposed power in our hands."

"You'd be wise not to underestimate Serenity."

"On the contrary, my friend, I look forward to the challenge—and to showing the Moon Queen herself what these ships she so scorned are capable of." He turned his head briefly to look at Kunzite. "Why? Do you still have doubts about what we are doing?"

"None whatsoever," the other returned with a smile.

Which made one spread slowly across Zoisite's face as well. Clasping his hands behind his back and settling back on his heels into a comfortable stance, he barked to the gunners, "Fire!"

A pulse of energy shot out from their ship and each of those surrounding them, and for a brief moment the ship's occupants could feel the tug of the discharge in their persons. Each blast sped toward its target as if in slow motion, causing the thin lunar atmosphere around it to ripple in waves as the air itself burned away. Then they hit their mark, and the shipyards exploded—at first noiselessly, a great blossom of red and gold and the blue of fuel tanks opening up with a light almost as bright as the sun in the midst of this lunar night, before the boom of it reached them even in their ship.

It made a small, morbid smile tug at the corner of Zoisite's mouth. From so far away, the destruction was beautiful like a firecracker, and its totality was sweetened all the more by the knowledge that whatever came now, those on the ground would be powerless to evade it. The Earth ships had taken out their only means of escape. And as for those who were sorry enough to flee into the surrounding hills . . . Well, they would realize the folly of that soon enough.

Conscious that his comrades were watching, Zoisite allowed only a trace of his good humor to bleed into his voice when he gave the order, "Gunners, target the main gates."

They taunted him with their solidity on the edge of the Sea of Serenity for the last time. "It's time we cracked this kingdom open," he muttered sarcastically under his breath, "and make sure its people know for themselves what a truly fragile shell is their exalted existence here."

——

An explosion ripped through the air, shock waves rippling through the ground beneath them, and the guards started at the sound of it. Endymion raised his head only to see a ball of flame rising to the sky over his shoulder from the direction of the shipyards. And behind it. . . .

His worst fears confirmed. A fleet of black ships flying low over the sea approached the city, their cannons aimed at the gates, at the Palace below, and their numbers were so thick in the lunar sky that they all but blotted out the stars and the full Earth behind them.

Endymion's eyes went wide in horror, but he did not allow himself to be overcome by it. He had the clarity of mind to take advantage of the opportunity that had been given him by this development, even if it was just what he had feared most. While the guards relayed commands to one another about this new threat, he easily broke free of their grasp and spun on his heels in Serenity's direction. His most pressing thought now was for her safety, though he also knew that if he stayed where he was, it could easily spell his demise.

As for the Princess. . . . If this attack were about Earth's revenge, he was sure they would be coming for her. Her or what she carried—he doubted his people would see fit to make the distinction anymore. And he could not allow Serenity to be taken. Not on his life.

As if Providence were on his side, his path led him directly to Serenity. Fear and determination hammered hard with every pounding beat of his heart as he pushed desperately through the panicked crowds. Calling her name, he eventually heard her voice above the din, and before he knew it her arms were wrapped around his, pulling him away from the crowds before he could even swear his gratitude to the gods.

Or else curse them. But he knew it was no god that could be blamed for what was just beginning.

"It's just as I feared," he hissed. "The Earth ships are here. We've run out of time, Serenity."

"Perhaps there's still one thing we can do."

Her eyes were wild as she turned them up to his, her grip on his arm all the more urgent.

"The Imperium Silver Crystal!" she breathed, as though they should have thought of it all along—and no doubt they should have. "If there is one thing that can put a stop to all of this, the Silver Crystal is it! If we can reach the center of the Palace, its most sacred heart, we might be able to mount a defense—"

"But your mother, the Queen. Doesn't she have it with her at all times? We must find her—"

"And if we cannot do that. . . ." The Princess clutched her chest, her eyes downcast as she searched within herself for what Endymion knew not. "If it comes to it, I must be prepared—"

"For what, Princess? I swore I would not let any harm come to you—"

Before Endymion could speak another word, the tower of the building beside them erupted into flames, its crystal dome shattering to rain shards down upon the revelers who still lingered on the patio. While Endymion raised an arm to shield himself and the Princess from the debris, the rest fled, leaving only them and a few stunned others to watch as the magnificent black ship that had led the attack floated in to settle itself down amid the tattered decorations in the courtyard below them, its cannons still sparking and dragging with it the acrid scent of burnt ozone.

Every ounce of self-preservation that remained in Endymion urged him to flee as well. With Serenity in his arms, the Palace guards already flocking down to meet the enemy ship, it was the wisest decision he could make. Yet something kept him rooted where he stood, his gaze fixated on the great doors as they were slowly lowered to the pulverized stone tiles—knowing who he would see there and yet hoping against hope that he did not.

As the two watched, a wall of energy rolled out from the lowered ramp to crash into the first wave of the Queen's soldiers, throwing them and their ringing swords back hard against the broken stone. It broke through the roiling smoke, allowing for a brief instant a clear view of the ramp of the landed ship—and of the figures who were descending it.

"Kunzite. . . ."

And the other three were there with him as well.

Endymion bit back his snarl. What good would it do him now? He had already suspected that his officers were scheming behind his back, even if he had refused to believe they would betray him in this magnitude. They had been his closest companions since he was a small boy, Kunzite in particular like a brother to him; and it was not long ago that, like a fool, he had believed Zoisite's gentle words. How sickeningly transparent they seemed to him now, in hindsight. Now even the love Endymion still harbored, stubbornly, for them failed in light of this most atrocious act of treason.

No, treason did not even begin to describe what they had done.

His arm shook beneath Serenity's grasp with the fury and disgust of his betrayal. However, there was nothing left Endymion could think of to do but run in the direction Serenity had told him. He still had someone to protect, and that mattered more to him than anything else.

——

For a split second, Zoisite thought he glimpsed his Prince and the Princess Serenity through the smoke on the patio above them, staring down at their ship with wild eyes before they disappeared into the Palace—but it might have been just his imagination. He blinked to clear the smoke from the fires from his eyes, fanning them away from the ship with a flick of the wrist.

"Something the matter?" Nephrite said beside him, catching the gesture, but he didn't seem to be that concerned.

"Everything is just peachy," Zoisite told him, "now that I'm on solid ground. Would you expect anything less?" He unsheathed his sword with a gusto, smiling as Nephrite stepped forward, twirling his own halberd in his hand, and nonchalantly sliced off the sword arm of the first Moonman to rush him, felling him with one more slash across the torso.

"Fools," Nephrite said with more than a flicker of distaste. "This would be so much less painful if they simply surrendered to our great master's will."

Zoisite snorted. "Do you honestly think such a thought would ever enter their minds? But no matter, my friend. We came to destroy them, not humiliate them into signing some sort of truce. There can be no peace as long as the might of the Imperium Crystal hangs like a guillotine's blade over our heads."

The other merely growled his frustration, making Jadeite call back over his shoulder, the flashing light of distant explosions glinting off the arterial spray of his newest victims: "Hey! Do you two mind bickering over philosophy on your own time and lending a hand? Less talk and more action!"

Zoisite's lopsided smile said plainly enough that he was only too glad to step back into the fray. "Why, Jadeite?" he shot back. "I don't believe for a minute these _children_ with their toy swords are even a challenge for you. Shouldn't you save that tone for Serenity's navy?"

"We don't have time to wait around for her navy," Kunzite reminded them all. Striding coolly onto the broken stones, he seemed to expend no more effort than he might were he merely swatting away flies as one Moonman after another was laid low by his flashing sword. "Queen Beryl wants that Crystal. Our job is to make sure she gets it, and with all possible haste."

A subtle, wry grin on his lips made him look like some malignant specter, gleaming white in the paltry Earthlight.

"Of course, any spaceman you can send to oblivion along the way is just icing on the cake."

"It would be my pleasure," Zoisite muttered in response beneath his breath. No one else had to hear but his own heart, and their great master, whose presence he could feel like he had not since that night in the Dark Kingdom's halls.

This, however—unlike that time, when he could not yet appreciate her brand of energy—was not an unpleasant experience. He could feel her pleasure with each soul put to death in her name filling him, leading his sword in an elegant dance of blood spray and destruction that no space battle with its beautiful yet distant explosions could match. The reluctant give of flesh as it submitted to his blade, the ring of steel on bone. . . . He sensed the men charging him from behind, and it made the satisfaction of sinking his sword deep into an attacker's chest, stabbing blind beneath his own arm and through his cape to strike true to a target who never saw it coming, that much sweeter. And the guards who approached from the front—they must have thought he would be too busy to deal with them with his sword already occupied. A couple spikes of ice shot through their skulls and breasts put a quick end to that. And when he tired of even that, a single blast of energy swept his path clean of opponents.

These spacemen should have known better than to think they would be any match for the likes of him and his comrades. After all, it was only natural they should fall before the swords of living gods. What the four had been in only name before, Metallia had made them, body and soul.

They were an unstoppable force. And they wasted no time, focusing only on the men who stood between them and the Palace proper, where the Queen Serenity and her power awaited them; the rest would be cleaned up by Earth's vengeful masses. With their hatred and distrust and jealousy nurtured and spurred on by Metallia, they were eager to spill the blood of spacemen.

To Zoisite and his comrades, however, these revelers and sorry excuse for a royal guard meant nothing but an obstacle to be surmounted—an amusing challenge to warm them up for the main attraction as they strode quickly and with purpose through halls that only months ago they had enjoyed the luxury of traversing at leisure.

They found what they were searching for soon enough. Or, perhaps, it found them. As the magnificent staircase that led to the Palace's innermost chambers came into sight, the four were halted by the familiar figures of the Princess's guardians at the summit. They were already dressed for battle, in the armored white bodices and short, freeing skirts that made them seem so much like the warrior goddesses of old. The weapons of their choosing were at their sides, ready but not raised, and hardly had they ever seemed so ineffective to Zoisite as he glanced around at his companions and at their own bloody swords.

Jadeite exhaled sharply beside Zoisite as he lowered his. "So, they were ready for us after all, were they?"

None of them could quite see from their vantage point how the young women started to see them there, the Princess's guardians were well trained in hiding their emotions from onlookers, even if the shock of being confronted by their former friends turned bitter enemies was not something for which any of them could have prepared mentally.

"Then it's true," Mars called down to them, only the slightest trace of regret in her steady voice giving away the anger and disappointment she must have felt inside. "You have turned against us."

Jupiter spared a glance no longer than a flash of lightning at Mercury, who seemed to step back from the edge of the stairs. She had been right to warn them as soon as she had, but what a burden it must have been on her to bear, to be the bringer of such distressing news.

Mars's fist tightened at her side. "You've turned against your Prince!"

"No, princess," Nephrite called back as Jadeite grinned, "it is our Prince we've come to save, and all of Earth with him."

Kunzite stepped toward the staircase, and that silenced anything further from his comrades.

"We've come for the Imperium Silver Crystal," he said. "Release it, and Prince Endymion, into our hands and we might yet let you keep your lives."

"Right, you would. As slaves—or worse!" Jupiter shot back. "You already know our answer to that!"

In response, Kunzite turned, and lifted an arm to the sky at their backs, where the one-sided battle from space still raged. His hand seemed to gesture to none of the ships hovering there, but at the blackness between them, which now, amidst the raging battle, seemed almost to take on a life of its own.

"Then surely you already know, as well, that you will be destroyed if you continue to resist our great master's will. Even if Serenity's ships do come to meet us, there will be nothing left for them to find but the charred and broken remains of this once magnificent city. Nor do I believe I'm mistaken in saying the destruction will be unprecedented in all of Mankind's long history."

"If that indeed be our fate, to perish, then we will take the four of you down with us."

It was Venus who spoke then, and the addition of her voice into the fray made Kunzite's smile falter, if only momentarily, and hidden from the views of his comrades. He turned to face her then.

"The Silver Millennium will never surrender," she said, "and neither its Princess nor its Crystal shall ever fall into your hands. Even if it means our lives. We will protect them both with our lives, and with all of the power bestowed upon us by the planets who birthed us. We will see how your master stands up to the wrath of this entire system."

What little remains of it, she means, Zoisite thought with a smirk. Nor did any of his comrades appear particularly intimidated.

"Then that is your decision?"

"Do you even need to ask me that, Kunzite?" Venus pulled taut the end of the chain she wore low on her hips as though to steel herself, as she stared coolly down at them. "While we still breathe, none of you will pass us."

"Fair enough," Zoisite heard Jadeite murmur under his breath.

He prepared himself as well, condensing and chilling the air around him in preparation for his first attack.

That honor was to belong to the Princess's guardians, however. Before any of his party could deal the opening blow, Jupiter called down a bolt of lightning. It landed near the bottom of the steps and tore up the stone before the young men's feet, spreading in all directions as though honing in on each and yet none of them, forcing them to scatter.

Even as they were doing so, however, Kunzite let fly a well-aimed blast that hit the pediment above the sailor soldiers' heads, and there was no better reminder than that that it would do them no good to stay in their one vantage point either. Zoisite and Jadeite were quick to back him up, the latter with fire, the former loosing shards of ice that might shatter against the stone but sink deep into any flesh it happened to hit. But Mercury's mind worked just as fast, nor should Zoisite have expected anything less. His ice flew straight into a heavy fog, through which the four Earthmen could no longer track their enemy's movements.

"They think they can throw us off their scent that easily?" Nephrite growled, but Zoisite found himself chuckling.

"She thinks she's clever, but this fog should actually work to our advantage. We might not be able to see them, but all the harder for them to see one of us slipping through their defenses as well."

As though reading his mind, Kunzite's voice reached them disembodied through the mist. "We'll split up and try to break through to the inner ring of the Palace that way. We only need one of us to seize the Crystal."

He need not have said so twice. Zoisite was already on the move, cutting right to follow the southern edge of the great stairs. As much pleasure as it would have given him to stay and fight, so much easier was it to simply rush through and gain the glory quickly for himself.

A blast of water that curled about like a living thing cut off his path of escape, however, and he pulled up only a heartbeat before becoming engulfed in its spray. He clenched his teeth in a snarl. Nor were his suspicions incorrect. When the fog began to clear, it was Mercury he saw before him, a blade of water raised and poised to strike him down.

He dissipated the dragon of water with one hand and unsheathed his own sword to meet hers with the other.

And only just in time. Her blade crashed down upon his; and elemental though it was, he felt the pressure of it bearing down upon his saving parry, as though with all the pressure of the deep ocean.

Zoisite let her hold him there as a smile of understanding slowly spread upon his lips. "You four were certainly prepared to meet us, weren't you? You knew in advance we were coming."

It was more an accusation than a guess. Her knitted brow told him he was not off the mark.

"Bunbo warned me about you—about what you had become."

"Ah. One of his letters got through, then?"

He could feel Mercury ease up on him only slightly, even if her face did not show her confusion as clearly. "No. He came to tell me in person. He told me what I must do."

"Then surely you know he is no doubt slaughtering as many spacemen as he can as we speak."

To see the horror and disgust on Mercury's face at those words was reward enough, tickling Zoisite in a dark place deep down he was only subconsciously aware he had. "I know," she said, and it obviously pained her to do so. "And I regret I wasn't able to do anything to help him like he begged me to. But I take none of the blame for what's become of him. It was you who made him what he is, Zoisite, just like it was you who brought these ships to our doorstep. I know who to rightly blame now."

At that, Zoisite had had enough. With a renewed burst of strength, he pushed her off and swung his sword, and its steel blade tore effortlessly though hers, bursting its spell in a fountain of water droplets.

A quiet gasp she could not quite catch in time spilled from Mercury's lips, before she leaped back out of harm's way, and brought one of the curious items he had merely glimpsed during the war to bear. A quick, muttered prayer over it the words of which he could not hear, and a new blade appeared in her hand—stronger, more material, and, he had no doubt, one that would not dissipate at the first clash with an equal blade.

Zoisite bided his time. "What exactly did my boy say about me?"

"He said you had become a monster—you and your fellows. That your soul had been warped, corrupted."

She watched him warily as he began to pace in a circle about her, knowing just as well as she did she was being stalked like prey, her weaknesses sought out. Well and she would doubtless be examining his, as well, if she were half as smart as he believed she was; Zoisite did not care. Strategy had always been their greatest strength; they were equals on that ground. Which only made this duel—a game of wits as well as swords—that much more entertaining. The rush of the spray in the courtyard's extravagant fountains, by which they had once sat in burgeoning infatuation, mixed with the distant booms of cannon fire to create an ironic melody for such a sinister waltz.

"He said that that _thing_—that _darkness_ that took Mars had possessed you, made you cruel," Mercury said, "and that I should destroy you."

Zoisite laughed at that. He could not help himself.

"Did he, now? And you promised to do as he said?"

She did not answer outright, but he could sense her answer in her slight recoil. He took the chance afforded him, and struck like a viper.

Mercury was ready for him, however, parrying quickly, the ringing of her blade against his light and true as she sidestepped his attacks in precisely the opposite direction of where they would have done her the most harm. He should have known better than to go up against an opponent who knew the laws of physics just as well if not better than he did. She alone among all whom he had battled made him feel like he was slashing underwater, his moves sluggish by comparison, while she, with her slight frame and seemingly weaker disposition, backed out of his attacks with unrivaled agility.

At least, out of most of them.

Gritting his teeth in his frustration, Zoisite slid his blade along the side of hers, twisting them together until their momentum forced them elbow to elbow, and he could finally hear close at his ear her labored breathing.

"You won't do it," he mocked her, finding himself breathless. "You cannot. It isn't in you. You know damn well what I am and all that I mean to do to you and your Moon Kingdom, and you still cannot bear the thought of destroying me!"

"This evil that's gotten into you," she shouted back— "Zoisite, I know it isn't you! You're not yourself! The kind, gentle-hearted person I knew not so long ago—that cool-headed man who charmed me right here five years ago—"

"He never existed. He was a lie, a farce. Metallia put an end to that, showed me who I really was—what I was meant all along to be—"

"No." Mercury dared not shake her head in her denial, but the brilliance of her blue eyes as they bored into his spoke enough to her conviction. "No. I refuse to believe that is true. There was goodness in you once—true goodness. You only deny it because you know it is still there buried inside you. This Metallia you speak of—it might have warped you, but I know it could not destroy that person I once knew so well completely, if you would only find the strength within yourself to resist it!"

Wake up, Zoisite—snap out of this! He could hear the command beneath her words, shaking him, drilling their truth into his brain, and it only made the darkness within him swell up all the larger, and his hatred for her and everything she had ever been to him grow. "_Enough!_" he growled, pushing Mercury bodily away from him. "Nothing can resist her! Have you not gotten that through your thick head yet?"

Mercury stumbled back, her grip on her sword loosening with the force of his blow so that it fell from her fingers and twirled away from her across the pavement. Even that show of weakness, rare though it was, only fueled his disgust, and his desire to be rid of her.

"You should have known better," he gritted out. "You're smart enough, you should have figured it out. You should have killed me when you had the chance, like that boy of mine told you to do, rather than throw away your life for a delusion—for some . . . childish ideal of chivalry!"

He stepped toward her, prepared to deal the finishing blow, but a wall of water sprang up from the puddles that filled the gaps between the stone tiles, cutting him off from her and nearly blinding him.

Letting his sword fall to his side, he froze it with a touch into a wall of glittering ice.

But the diversion had accomplished its goal, allowing Mercury just the reprieve she needed to retrieve her sword.

And, with nothing standing now between he and it, her own attack now blocking her pursuit, allowing Zoisite the opening he needed to make for the gate into the Palace's inner chambers at the top of the stairs.

He spun on his heels, wasting hardly another thought on Mercury as he took to the air. His comrades were already occupied with the other sailor soldiers. If he hurried, he might yet make it to the inner sanctum—

A noose of water twisted itself around his leg, and would have sent him sprawling face-first upon the stone tiles far below if his reflexes had been any less. He turned, struggling to free himself even as he was pulled quickly back to earth. His restraints constricted around him, and he could feel the temperature drop through his soaked trouser leg as it hardened into ice, but this time it was not his doing. The pommel of his sword did nothing but chip away at it, and he dared not risk injuring himself with its business end.

"How many times have I told you already?" Mercury said, as his eyes snapped up to meet hers, full of fury. "The well-being of my Princess is my life, Zoisite."

The way she spoke his name was not without a trace of the old affection she had once harbored for him, and he was surprised to hear it even now, even if it was with the bitterness of regret and mourning for those lost days, seemingly so long ago. It riled him like little else had yet. With a sweep of his arm, the ice with which she had ensnared him exploded from within; and this time, neither of them was entirely safe from the shrapnel. Mercury covered her face, but it did not escape Zoisite how the sparkling shards drew blood from her arms and legs. It was his one consolation, as he discovered the weight on his leg now brought forth an unintended hiss of pain.

"That's the fate you've chosen for yourself?" he growled through his teeth.

She met his eyes fearlessly, fiercely. "It is my duty, my purpose."

And nothing she might have felt for him before was going to make her act in any way but according to that purpose. He was in the same boat, the one exception being that now he felt only resentment for what little they had once shared.

"Then it will be the death of you."

He raised his sword to strike, and as he did so, her fingers tightened around the grip of her own.

——

Screaming filled Bunbo's ears, the stench of smoke and charred flesh his nostrils. The only reprieve was the occasional boom and rumble of another explosion, violently shaking the city all around him like a strong quake so that sometimes it seemed like the Moon itself would crumble to pieces under his feet.

Yet somehow he remained on them. With inhuman speed and strength he tore from one courtyard to the next, laying waste to the remnants of the banquets that remained there, slaughtering whomever was too slow to move out of his way. He saw himself as though in a dream as he ripped apart a woman who had fallen in the chaos and been tangled in her own evening gown, then dodged the blow of a man who had come after him in revenge with a heavy candelabra. He did not even feel himself doing it, just smelled the spatter of hot wax hitting his clothes and skin, and watched in horrified fascination the fountain of blood and viscera as the man's torso fell away from his legs. The Queen's guards rushed to surround him, but his hopes that they might somehow overpower him and put a swift end to his suffering were short-lived and in vain. He had decapitated one before the man even saw him coming, skewered the one charging from behind, and used another as a living shield while he quickly dispatched a good number of his fellows.

It did not seem humanly possibly to Bunbo that he should be doing these things, he who had been reluctant to engage even in simulated battle, and whose body lacked the discipline of even a mediocre swordsman; but nonetheless, he was doing it. His eyes did not lie. As though everyone else were moving in slow motion, he caught every horrified expression that lit up their faces at every perfectly executed maneuver of his own. And yet for how easy it should have been to simply stand still and wait for some guard's sword to run him through, he could not. It was as if his body were being controlled by another power; but even then Bunbo could not lie to himself. He could feel the monster inside that he had become, that desired badly to kill, and to live to kill, that dragged a smile to his lips even as his insides tensed from the carnage that surrounded him with the need to vomit.

God help him, he was one of Metallia's children now.

They all were. Gesen who, with the wave of a hand, could bring a rooftop down on top of all those trapped beneath it, and Boxy, whose victims Bunbo had found with skulls crushed and chests flattened, swords bent if not completely shattered or warped from such force they seemed half melted.

To say nothing of the old man who had once been Mars's grandfather, whom Jadeite had made into a mindless creature who flitted over the rooftops from killing field to killing field like a shadow—and whose taste for spacemen flesh was only rivaled by that of the tiger Hercules. Bunbo could still see it clearly in his mind, the last time he and the old man had crossed paths, and the blood had run thick and almost black from his mouth, from the torn-out throat of some hapless party-goer, and a child no less. . . .

And _her_ shadow loomed over everything, grinning a black hole grin at the carnage that was committed in her name. Metallia. The chaos fed her, emboldened her; and every soul laid low by Bunbo's blades was a sacrifice to her and her omnipotent will.

The boom sounded closer this time, and the explosion that ripped apart the dome of the great library was so near Bunbo could feel its heat wash over him. Splintered glass pierced the arm he raised to shield his face but he paid his wounds as much attention as he might a bee sting, and simply brushed the debris from his jacket sleeve, ignoring the pain. He had suffered worse already—he bled freely from several scratches, not least among which was a deep gash in his right leg, and he feared some bones were broken on his left side by the way his short sword seemed slightly slowed—but he kept moving nonetheless, kept killing.

The guards recovered from the explosion and rushed toward him again, seeing it as their chance, but a rapid volley of flashing needles struck them dead-center, _that-that-that_, and felled them in less than a second.

Bunbo looked up disinterestedly, and his gaze alighted on two figures backlit by the flames of the burning books, staring down at him from their perch on one of the exposed beams. The firelight reflected cruelly off Rikokeider's monocle and the incendiary grenades that encircled her figure; beside her, Veena was in contrast like an aloof and beautiful angel, but for the crossbow that she aimed just to the left of Bunbo.

He found himself glaring at them. At the same time, the human that remained in him pitied them for what they had become, and the monster despised them for their help he did not need. Just because the two of them were working together did not mean he too needed the company.

In truth, however, it was the fact that he could feel their essences pulling at him like magnets that Bunbo despised. He could not deny that the monster inside him wanted to join with its fellows, and fight as one terrifying being. And he doubted his will to resist that pull would last much longer. Because with Metallia fueling their rage, he doubted there was anything powerful enough on this world to stop them once they combined, including even the Imperium Silver Crystal.

Bunbo turned and stormed off, hurrying in the direction of the screams, where no doubt there were plenty enough people fleeing the smoke and the flames in herds to sate, at least for a short while, his bloodlust. He only prayed that someone among them would get lucky enough to deal the blow that ended at very least his part in this carnage.

——

Another explosion rattled the Crystal Tower, this one sounding much closer than the last. Tiny pieces of moonrock crackled like static as they fell to the floor where the Queen knelt in prayer. Despite how long it had stood sacred and unchanged, it seemed the tower was finally showing its great age; although, truth be told, the Queen was not sure there was ever a time it had ever had to face such a destructive force as the one her world faced now.

Nor did she particularly care at the moment, as she kneeled at its center, what happened to her.

"My daughter," she spoke as though just waking from a dream, and not for the first time since the Moon had come under attack. "What am I doing here? I must find my daughter."

"No, my Queen," Artemis said when the earth beneath them had calmed somewhat, and his eyes were wild in the dim. "You mustn't leave here. It is safer in the Tower, and I am loath to think what might become of our world were anything to happen to you."

"And this building might collapse around us before that can happen," she said softly; but she did not fight him. She knew as well as he did that there was no place safer in the Moon Kingdom than where they were. However. . . . "Would that Serenity were only here with me."

"Then pray for her," Artemis said, being unable to come up with anything else. "She knows where to find you; I'm sure she is on her way as we speak. Pray that she will make it here unscathed."

But to what gods, neither could say. They were the ones others prayed to, and looked to for help in their most dire times of need. But who was it would come to the gods' salvation?

Now more than ever Serenity missed Pluto's voice. Even though her defender was close by, busy securing the city elsewhere, the tower seemed all the more empty and fragile without her reassuring words to ring through it.

The sound of shells detonating in the distance, and Luna raised her voice, as though she had read the path of the Queen's thoughts.

"We could end it, your majesty. All of it, right here. How much longer does this need to go on? The Imperium Silver Crystal. It can put this right. It can—"

"It is not all-powerful."

The two aliens started as if struck by her revelation, and she could not say it did not pain her to say it. "What they say about the Crystal's power is not all true. Its power is limited. _My_ power is limited. And as long as I remain a prisoner to my own shortcomings, I am afraid it might not be enough to stand up to that darkness outside. I fear it might even make it more powerful."

"But mustn't we try? Your highness, what option do we have left?"

"None. But I only fear in our one chance to put things right, we might end up dooming ourselves once and for all. This must be approached carefully." Serenity sighed. "How much good it would do my own spirits just to know my daughter was safe."

Artemis turned to her then, grabbing Luna's arm as though to steady them both. "There is another way. That girl—"

"No." Luna shook her head fiercely. "Do not say it—"

"Sailor Saturn has the ability to end it all—to silence that monster and put an end to all this destruction."

"But what you suggest means certain death for us all!"

"Not necessarily. If Sailor Pluto—"

"Artemis, she can never—it is forbidden!"

"You're right, Luna. What Artemis speaks of is the last cowardly effort of someone who is desperate and cornered," the Queen's soft voice echoed lowly in the chamber. "But we are cornered, and we are desperate. Perhaps if I had been stronger, I would have used Saturn when I had the chance on the outer planets, and spared us all this horror."

"You could not have known that this would happen then, your majesty," Luna tried to reassure her.

But that was increasingly more difficult to do. All their hopes were fading fast.

"No," Serenity agreed reluctantly. "Perhaps no one can know such things. But will I fail to make the right decision time and time again?"

The Queen rose, with such suddenness the other two were startled. "My Queen," Artemis began again, "please—"

"I must find my daughter," she told them. "Whatever happens to me, I cannot remain at rest here, let alone decide the fate of my people not knowing if she even still lives."

She tore from the Tower then, sparing not even a glance back to see if the other two would follow her.

——

An ordinary lady of the court no longer, she had become their queen. A queen of Earth, of the Dark Kingdom, and of the world that was to come at the end of this one. Metallia's breath filled her lungs, giving her words power and passion and lending them the volume needed to reach the riled masses when she called for the utter destruction of the Moon Kingdom. The people in return shouted her name with love and obedience, and surged forward like an extension of her own body. She could feel their energy thanks to her master's grace, could all but see its glow around them as the mass surged forward to kill, to tear down, to blaspheme all that had made the Silver Millennium the glorious and proud, and despicable and sinful thing it was. The soldiers stabbing with cold-hearted precision, the common people whose indignation fueled them to cut down the oppressors, tear down their once magnificent edifices and all they stood for, with all the visceral voracity of army ants devouring a bull elephant. . . . It made her heart sing so that she could hardly contain her joy. It made her laugh like a drunkard, reveling in the delicious warmth running through her veins, through every limb, drunk with the sheer power.

It could not last forever. The initial surge was quite a spectacle to behold, but even that would soon die down as there were increasingly fewer spacemen to oppose them. The battle in the air was another story, as the silver lunar warships at last arrived to engage those vessels of Earth that remained airborne. The colorful flash and boom of high-altitude explosions added to the excitement of the action on the ground, providing the triumphant score their uprising required, even if that battle were not as clearly decided as the one on the ground. Either way, they had Metallia's strength to guide them, and all the energy of their sun she had brought with her. Through the flaming engines of one careening ship, or behind the flashing blasts of cannons, her smiling visage beamed through the darkness of space, like an after-image implanted on every retina.

Perhaps it was she who reached into Beryl's mind to tear her concentration from the roiling mass around her, and lead her down a path that appeared otherwise unnoticed by the surrounding crowd.

Beryl strode swiftly down that abandoned hallway, her sword hanging with purposes yet unknown at her side, the bells around her ankles setting a pleasant rhythm with each quick but unhurried step, each explosion muffled by the thick walls of moonrock and shattering crystal. Her path led her past every obstacle, cutting straight and true to the inner courtyards of the Moon Palace itself, where the flat expanse that hid the life support computers deep below it still shone in its crater like the silver surface of a calm lake despite all that was happening just outside.

All around the perimeter, the Palace colonnades stood empty and silent and eternal, beautiful, laced with tiers of impeccably manicured greenery, embellished with fanciful staircases and archways, balconies and pavilions. How she longed to lay waste to them all. Long pools of the purest water, like spun silver, stretched out from where she stood to the Crystal Tower standing at the very center, stretching like the finger of some giant, desperate, toward any help that might come from the heavens.

But Beryl knew for a fact that none would come. Naught but a long overdue rain of destruction would ever again come from that direction.

Her feet carried her aimlessly from her vantage point, out toward a pavilion that stood overlooking the crater, and presently she heard the sound of voices. One male and one female, and both pained by sorrow and desperation. They did not hear her approach, and so she was allowed to watch them unseen from behind one of the structure's pillars.

When she recognized them, her breath caught in her throat.

It was the young Princess Serenity, and with her Beryl's own Prince. _Endymion. . . ._ Merely seeing that he was alive and well after the destruction outside made her heart swell with relief and love for him—making her feel like she were a young girl again, and watching for the first time the young Prince she had been told was her betrothed through the latticed moongate of her late father's tearoom. His handsome face shone no less pure nor sincere than that day long ago.

Despite all of Metallia's influence, she loved him even now—now, perhaps, stronger than ever. He who had been her standard, in whose name she had bridged the void of space and brought an entire world. And at last, she thought, I have found you, my Prince. At last I will set you free of all this.

His hands that she had so often dreamed of were wrapped, white-knuckled, around Serenity's, her own gripping the pommel of a sword too heavy and rusted with age for a girl such as herself to ever hope to wield. Jealousy wove its wicked snare within Beryl at that sight, flaring within her as it never had before, so that her own fingers ached, they gripped her own sword so tightly at her side.

Whatever words the two spoke to one another, they would remain forever between the two of them; because when Beryl stepped out from behind her pillar, the young Prince and Princess said no more to one another, but turned their fearful gazes to the newcomer.

"Beryl?" Endymion's eyes were wide with mingled disbelief and accusation.

And how she hated to see him like this.

"Yes, it's I. Your Beryl," she said softly, as though to frightened animals.

"What are you doing here?"

"Why, I've come for you, my Prince." Was it not obvious to him? "Your whole world has come to free you from this tyranny."

Her words must have struck a chord, though not necessarily the one she wanted to strike. Endymion pulled Serenity behind himself to shield her with his form, and drew his sword from its scabbard, holding its point at Beryl. "You mean you've come to destroy it."

"My Prince . . . my dear Endymion, whatever do you mean?"

"It's you," he said breathlessly, almost like a lover but for the hatred in his eyes—hatred it broke her heart to see directed at her. "You orchestrated this attack on the Moon Kingdom, didn't you? It was you who brought that thing to the Moon, that thing that wants to destroy us all—"

"Only the enemies of Earth," Beryl insisted. "I could never harm my Prince. Only those who would hold him hostage, and try to brainwash him against his own people. Know I only ever want to bring his kingdom the glory and the might it rightly deserves. The Moon Kingdom must be made to see: as long as it stands in the way of our progress, and strives to keep us with our noses pressed to the dirt like animals beneath the yoke, we must oppose it with every fiber of our beings. It is only our divine right as human beings, is it not, Endymion?"

His eyes widened with horror at her at this, but it was the Moon Princess who suddenly caught Beryl's attention—she who was the pest that everything in Beryl's person cried out to eradicate once and for all. And if she just slipped a little farther out from Endymion's shadow, the opportunity might prove closer than Beryl could have hoped. . . .

——

With a cry of pain, Venus sank to the cold stone steps, her strength having finally abandoned her. Blood streamed from too many open wounds for her to count, and she feared her left ankle might have broken, it refused to support her weight any longer.

But it was Kunzite's last attack that had done her in, cutting her like a thousand scythes and singeing her flesh until she no longer had even the energy left to fight him.

It was that reality more than anything else that broke her will, and her heart—that the only man to whom she had ever given her love would be the one to beat her so soundly, and mercilessly. Had he forgotten the last five years—no, even longer—that they had shared in bliss in one another's company? Or could the Battle of Mars really have turned him into such a monster that she hardly even recognized the man?

No, she knew it was not war that had done this to him, but that same being that hovered above them all, grinning down death and oblivion—a being not of this solar system, if even of this universe. Which only made her fate that much more painful to accept: she could not even blame Kunzite for what he had done to her. Even after all he had done, all she hated him for, she loved him still and pitied him for what he had been made into.

Yet after all she had dealt him in retaliation, he remained on his feet and in good spirits. His silver-white uniform was torn in places, and sullied by blood—not all of it his own—but other than that, it was as if all she had thrown at him had been like a child ineffectually beating its fists against a grown man's chest.

"Have you finally had enough?" he asked as he stepped nearer her, the words cruel on his lips, sadistic. The clear evenness of his bootfalls on the tiles only seemed as if to rub in her utter defeat. "I find it hard to believe the great Sailor Venus, the Moon Princess's champion, should fall so easily. Please tell me the fight has not gone entirely from you."

"Why?" she managed between heavy breaths. "You haven't had your fill of beating me yet?"

"No. I'm merely disappointed you proved to be such an easy opponent to defeat. I had hoped you had more in you, Venus, but you allowed your feelings to get the better of your after all."

"Of course. My feelings." Venus attempted a laugh, but it only sounded like a pitiful cough from her trembling lips. Appropriate that he should be the one to lecture her about failing to destroy the one she loved. Yet it was a scathing enough comment to make her lower her eyes in shame. Truly, a sworn guardian of the one Princess of the Moon should have known better.

Then again, it was not as though she had held anything back; nor could she remember Kunzite possessing such utter power, despite his record in battle. Had the darkness that engulfed Mars changed his body as well as his soul, she wondered; and if such a thing could possess its servants with such awesome and sinister energy as this, just what kind of foe were they facing?

"Well, it no longer matters, does it?" Kunzite said when she failed to say anything more. "Although your Princess will surely be disappointed when she hears how little a fight you put up in her defense, when I pry the Silver Crystal from her grasp."

At his words, Venus's heart leaped with terror and renewed determination. The image of him standing over her lady's dying form was enough to drag from deep within her a new reserve of strength she was not aware she had had. If it cost her her last breath, she would not allow Kunzite nor any other to lay a hand on her Princess or the Silver Imperium Crystal.

In all probability, the energy it would require to ensure Serenity's safety would cost Venus her life. She would bleed out by the time she reached Serenity's side, if another attack did not kill her before then. But she had to try. It was worth it to try, and in any case, the alternative was not an option. To see her Princess's face again, to know that she was safe and that Venus had fulfilled her duty to her. . . .

Venus's grip tightened on her chain whip. She hoisted herself to one knee, and without warning, sent the bitter end of the whip flying in Kunzite's direction. He was not prepared, and it was only his reflexes that made him raise his arm in time to shield his face from the blow.

But he was not safe. The whip wrapped around his arm tight, biting into flesh. Venus could see his grimace of pain before he aimed a careful blow at the chain itself with his free hand. In a brief flash of light as bright as the sun, the chain that was supposed to be nearly indestructible shattered, both of them staggering back from the sudden snapping of tension. Kunzite had no time to even utter a curse before the end that was just loosening from his arm lit up in a brilliant explosion.

It would not kill him, Venus knew—doubtless with that _thing_ protecting him, she would be lucky if it stunned him—but the flash allowed her all the time she needed to flee back up the stairs as fast as her wounded and exhausted legs would carry her. She could feel what had remained of her energy fading fast after that last attack, but her determination to reach Serenity's side drove her onward, her devotion leading her way.

Staggering breathless against a pylon, she arrived at the pavilion overlooking the crater's edge just in time to see something bright flash in her Princess's hand; and, like an eagle who had found its prey, that was when Beryl thrust her sword. Venus felt as though her pounding heart were being torn out of her alive as she could only stand and watch the blade sink in.

But it was Endymion who fell onto it, not her Princess.

Serenity's wail of horror and despair spurred Venus back into action. She was still several heartbeats from the three of them, but with Beryl reeling from the unintended results of her own actions, she had not a moment to waste.

Somehow, however, though it seemed impossible, Venus was too late to stop her Princess. She could not even cry out to her, her breath catching at the sight as Serenity grabbed up the Holy Sword from where she had discarded it, and thrust its blade deep into her own breast.

It was as though she were watching a play, or merely dreaming, Venus could not believe that what she was seeing were actually happening to her—to the people she loved most dear in all the world. Her mind would not accept that they were dead, that the Endymion and Serenity whose bodies lay sprawled on the floor of the pavilion were not merely sleeping, if they were real at all. Or perhaps her heart had already died with them, for she felt as though she were not even in her own body as it carried her forward, and she withdrew the sword from her Princess's breast.

Beryl was backing away from her, not seeing Venus, but staring in horrified disbelief at the young couple who lay on the floor, sobbing Endymion's name. She died with it on her lips, as Venus ran her through.

Only then did it finally sink in for the young guardian—that her Princess and Endymion were truly gone, and that she would never see Serenity's smiling face turned to her again. She had lost her world, her reason for being, and now even the Moon Kingdom would soon be nothing but rubble; and the one person left she could think to turn to had betrayed her—for this evil. She had never been more alone than at that moment.

Venus sank to the floor of the pavilion, her tears flowing freely, but, the last of her strength sapped, lacking even the energy to wipe them away, or even to mourn the Princess she had failed. This unparalleled, incapacitating pain that seized her in her very core with every labored hitch of breath would soon be over, and selfishly she could only hope that that time came soon.

——

The lunar air was warm—perhaps the fires burning in the distance were what served to make it feel even warmer than usual—but ice glittered on Zoisite's brow even as his limbs protested from exhaustion; and still his sword flashed and rang like it had never had occasion to before. He had not thought it possible—truly, Serenity had done well in keeping it hidden from him—but Mercury proved to be his most difficult opponent yet, and no doubt the love she still professed to harbor for him made her attacks all the more precise.

Just as his hatred made his the more vicious.

If it were not for the pain that flared up his leg with each step and threatened to throw him off balance, or the bruises she had inflicted upon him that strained his breathing if he swung his arm in just the wrong way, he would have enjoyed the mental challenge of it. Even in his distaste for Mercury's emotional weakness and the pathetic romance—if their relationship could even be called that—they had once enjoyed, like ignorant children, he had to admire her stamina, and creativity, her cunning mind even in the face of certain death. If there were anything he could still say he loved about her, it was that.

They stumbled away from each other in mutual agreement, Mercury sinking to one knee and Zoisite hobbling on his injured leg. But a grin pulled at his lips as he fought to catch his breath. "You certainly do not give up, Mercury," he huffed. "I would not have expected such a fight of you."

"Do you think my Princess would have any less?"

"No." Zoisite forced a laugh. "No, I suppose not. Though it makes it that much greater a pleasure to finally face you in battle."

He lowered his blade momentarily from his en garde stance, raising his empty hand toward her. Where this new urge came from when he had been so eager to destroy her, he could not be sure, because he doubted it came from Metallia.

"You could always join me, you know," he said. "It is not too late. Earth could use your talents, and our great master is always eager to embrace those who come to realize the errors of their ways and submit. With a pure heart and sharp mind like you possess, you would be an incredible boon to her and to her efforts."

Mercury's horrified glare was answer enough. "How can you dream of asking me that after all that you've done? You think I would desire to be anything like you—like what it's made of you?"

"I thought it was a long shot . . . but the promise of infinite power—"

"Yes, I can see what wonderful power that thing has bestowed on you."

A wry smile once again tugged at Zoisite's lips. "While I appreciate the sarcasm, my dear Mercury," he said, "my offer still stands in all earnest. You're a smart woman, the smartest I've ever known. Even now I admire that about you, so I must ask why you continue to resist when the logical choice is so clear: to live or to be exterminated. Put aside this foolish pride, Mercury, these outdated notions of good and evil, and choose the winning side!"

"The _winning_ side? Is that what you call it? Your _great master_ can promise you nothing but oblivion!" Those had been the boy's words to him as well, but they resonated with Zoisite even less than they had then, so deep was he under Metallia's spell. "Those are the words of the already vanquished," he said under his breath, shaking his head, but he did not stop her from continuing.

"How you could even think I would join you is beyond me. I will say it again. My duty is with my Princess, and with the Crystal she protects."

"The Silver Millennium is on its way out, Mercury: face that fact. No _crystal_ will save you from that fate."

"Then I will perish with it! Better to draw my last breath fighting to protect all that is good in his system than live forever in _that_ evil!" She took a ragged breath, but her eyes were fierce and unblinking and deep as the ocean as they met his. "While I still live, I have to believe there is hope for us—for all of us, Zoisite. Even you."

He raised a brow. "Is that why you hesitate to destroy me like you know you must?"

Mercury opened her mouth to respond, but a crack louder than the peal of thunder split the very air above them, causing both to momentarily forget their strife in order to see what had caused it.

The dark shadow of Metallia hung over the surface of the Moon like a raincloud, blotting out the light of the other stars. Yet the sky was full of light—the vibrant flashes of exploding gases and engines bursting into flame. A lunar vessel broke apart in the air under an Earth ship's assault, sparking red and gold fire across a sky that seemed eerily to be grinning in wild triumph. As if in a slow dance, the vessel's nose tipped toward the Moon's surface and succumbed to her gravitational pull, leaving a trail of burning vapors behind her.

Zoisite and Mercury stared upward—the latter with sinking hopes, the former in a melancholic appreciation—as the vessel drifted over their heads with a roar that shook the tiles beneath their feet. The place where it eventually put down was far away, but the courtyard where they were was illuminated like day by the light of its explosion, rising in a pillar of flame into the atmosphere, and the ripples of the impact made them stagger on their feet. Zoisite grunted as he was thrown off balance, and that was when Mercury saw her chance.

From the puddles at their feet, she summoned a wave of water that surged toward him. Zoisite raised his arm to fend it off, but his concentration had not recovered, and the wave surrounded him, loosing his sword from his grip. He could not reach for it again, as the water pushed him back with the same velocity, raising his feet from the ground so he could not even dig in his heels to slow himself. He tried to wave the current away, break its tension, but his hands only slipped ineffectually through it; and the water only tightened into an orb that surrounded him completely, the pressure building upon him as it slowly contracted upon itself.

Zoisite gritted his teeth against the discomfort as he felt his limbs squeezed, the air forced from his lungs. But he dared not breathe in. After how far he had come, he would not be done in by drowning of all things. Yet he struggled to stifle a rising sense of panic. Would he allow himself to be defeated by Mercury after all, the young woman who all this time he was sure was more brain than brawn?

The answer rising from within him was a resounding no. Had he not given himself to his great master so that he might utilize her dark energy—energy that defied even the omnipotent laws of this universe's physics? His fists tightened at his side and he willed his mind calm. As the orb of water imploded around him, he allowed himself to bend with it, to find its structural weaknesses like minute cracks in its surface. With Metallia's energy as leverage, he widened those gaps, until the water's velocity, and its loyalty, had reversed itself, and it shot back out from him as deadly needles of ice. It required but a gesture to send them shooting back in Mercury's direction.

She had her water to shield her, however, and the power of her planet behind it. The needles of ice shattered against the barrier she raised, absorbing back into it as, her sword held straight at arm's length before her, she uttered a plea to her patron world—columns of water rising around her as she prepared for what both knew would be her strongest and final effort. If Zoisite did nothing now, he was lost; but if her attack failed, Mercury stood little chance of recovering from the drain in time to save herself.

She was too far away for Zoisite to reach her on foot before she could loose her attack, and his sword still lay where it had been torn from his grasp beyond her feet. Even if he lunged forward now, he would not beat her to the punch.

Then again, he was no longer restricted to this one plane of existence.

One moment he was stepping forward, condensing the grip of a dagger in the palm of his hand; and in the next half a heartbeat, Mercury was before him, the words of prayer to a distant world dying on her lips in a silent gasp as a sword of ice slid deep and cold under her ribs.

The columns of water died around them, splashing against them, but Zoisite hardly felt it. Staring into Mercury's eyes, they never looked so clear and blue as they did then, searching his in disbelief for some explanation that would account for what he had just done, or undo it. The affection she continued to harbor for him even at this betrayal, even in such agony as he had put her, never left her more beautiful nor more noble than she was now. It made Zoisite want to kiss her lips, if only to steal her last breath from them.

As it was, he twisted the ice dagger deeper, wrenching a grunt of pain from her, and a fresh wave of tears. She mouthed his name, with such an intimacy he had long yearned to hear from her, but no sound escaped her throat. Still she stood stubbornly on her feet, though she staggered, unwilling to fall and submit easily to such a clear and utter defeat. Her blood poured hot over his fingers where they still rested against her bodice, and it was only that, oddly enough, that stirred in him any regret, or pity. This warmth, this passion—now that he finally felt it from her, it was too late and in too wrong a way to bring him any pleasure, wasted.

"I'm sorry, Mercury," Zoisite heard himself saying as though from miles away, "but I did warn you this would happen. And now . . . I win. Tell me, how does it feel to know that, for once you were so wrong?"

She did not humor him with an answer; perhaps she no longer could. Gritting his teeth, he wrenched the sword of ice from her body, and that was when Mercury collapsed, sobbing with the effort as she tried and failed to pull herself back up.

Zoisite let the sword, now brilliant crimson, fall to the stone tiles beside her; he had no more use for it. His limbs trembled, but he told himself it was with the relief of surviving their duel by such a narrow margin. He was aware as he stepped by Mercury to retrieve his steel blade how her eyes followed him in one final act of desperation, one last appeal to his humanity. As the tip of the blade scraped against the stone he ventured one last look back at her, though he could see with each short, gurgling breath she still tried to take how little time was left for her.

Why it pained him to see her like this, he could not understand. Metallia should have numbed that part of him months ago. Yet he still felt as though he had failed somehow.

Zoisite shook that thought from his mind and set his sights on the grand staircase in front of him. The only way he would fail now, he told himself, was if he failed to see the Silver Crystal safely to his master's hands.

He was halfway up when he saw Jadeite descending the stairs toward him.

The sight of his comrade dragged a weak smile to Zoisite's lips. "Ah. Good to see you've been victorious as well."

"I suppose it all depends on what you call victory."

Jadeite's tone was more somber than the other would have expected at a time like this, but Zoisite shrugged it off. "Whatever. Where is Kunzite?"

"I don't know. But Nephrite is dead. As are Jupiter and Mars."

It took a little longer than expected for the news of his comrade's demise to sink in; and when it did, the shock of it nearly made Zoisite reel. But if he had taken one of the sailor soldiers with him, he rationalized, then at least he had not given his life in vain. "That is . . . unfortunate news, to be sure."

"Is that all you can say for it? Our comrade was killed—"

"Then it was a necessary sacrifice. One way or another, I'll be glad for your help, at least, in finding that Crystal."

He moved to step past Jadeite, but the other's hand landing hard on his shoulder refused to let him take another step. "I cannot let you do that, Zoisite," he said.

Zoisite stared at him.

Then he forced a laugh. "This is no time for fooling around, Jadeite. Unhand me—"

"Prince Endymion is dead," Jadeite said, harder, and this time Zoisite felt his heart stop momentarily in his chest. "It is over—"

"No. . . . No, I refuse to believe that—"

"Don't lie to me. You can feel it in your heart just as well as I can, Zoisite, that absence, that overwhelming sense of failure and loss of purpose that can only exist because our Lord and Master is dead—"

"_No!_" He jerked himself away from Jadeite then, taking one shaky step down from his comrade as though burned. His throat ached, sudden tears threatening to overwhelm him as Jadeite gave meaning to the unnamed void inside, growing with each revelation, that even Metallia for all her might could not fill, but he swallowed them back. Grabbed on to that darkness that had been his strength these past months like he had nothing else left. "It's a lie," he growled at Jadeite, fingers tightening on the grip of his sword. "We are doing this for him, and for Earth! There's no way he can be dead! It cannot be possible! And if I have to take that Crystal myself to prove it, then so be—"

The ring of Jadeite's sword as he drew it from its sheath stopped Zoisite in his tracks, and stilled his tongue. "Then you will have to go through me first."

——

The howl of straining, burning engines filled Zoisite's head as he backed slowly down the stairs, as though in his surprise that it was his comrade holding him at swordpoint he had lost the ability to hear anything in his immediate surroundings. Even the beat of his own heart seemed muted to him now, and the rockets and cannon blasts that filled the night sky spun over their heads as though in slow motion.

"You cannot be serious, Jadeite," he said when he had regained his voice.

"Perfectly," said the other. "This is what I should have done from the beginning. I should have turned my sword on myself when I first began to feel what I was becoming. Perhaps then they would still be alive. Nephrite, Endymion, Mars. . . ."

Jadeite shook his head slightly, his brow furrowing in some internal turmoil as his voice dropped to just above a whisper. "By the gods, Zoisite, I killed her with my own hands. I loved her like I never loved another woman—I _cherished_ her, and I just choked the life from her with my bare hands, as though it were nothing. . . ."

"You had to do it," Zoisite reminded him, feeling it was his duty to do so. "She would have killed you otherwise."

"And would that she had. I don't deserve to live for what I've done. None of us do."

"Speak for yourself, and remember who is the enemy here! Was it not the Moon Kingdom that threatened to destroy us, to keep our planet in a dark age of famine and civil war and slavery if we did not do their bidding? What we are doing here tonight is justified!"

"No." Jadeite's voice was low and sorrowful, but just as steady and aimed just as true as his blade. "We were mistaken. That was a lie fed to us by Beryl, and Metallia made sure we were too drunk on her energy to know the difference."

At that Zoisite's jaw tightened.

"You dare speak to me of Metallia when it was _you_, Jadeite, need I remind you, who brought me into her fold, who enlightened me to her righteousness?" All that agony I went through, he thought, for you, for Kunzite—and you tell me now that you were _mistaken_? "Why should I listen to you?"

"_Because_ it was I who did this to you! Don't you see? I was wrong—I see that now, if only too late—so wrong to have hurt you like I did, to bring Nephrite to this end. I might as well have killed him myself—"

"What you speak is betrayal against the great master to whom you swore your existence."

The violent swing of his sword that Zoisite parried more on instinct than anything else spoke plainly enough to Jadeite's decision. "Then execute me in Metallia's name, Zoisite, if that's what you intend to do! I swear I won't go easily. But do it knowing you've already betrayed Endymion. We're all complicit in his death. He was our master to serve from conception, the only one to whom we should have ever sworn allegiance, and we failed him. God, how we failed him! Doing away with you now won't bring him back, but if that is the only way I can stop you and make you see sense, then do not think for a minute that I should hesitate to right the mistake I made with you!"

He sprang forward in a strong thrust that might have found its mark had Zoisite not teleported. He reappeared not thirty paces away, on a landing and even ground where he might yet stand a chance against his old friend. Whether Jadeite still had their great master on his side, however, he could not know; but he had no doubt she would lend her support to he who was still loyal to her. Her strength was only increasing; that Zoisite could still feel, like a shadow looming above him growing in size.

"Don't make a bigger mistake than you already have," he warned Jadeite, as the other strode purposefully down the stairs to meet him. "You already chose the right side once, the winning side. Why turn your back on it this late in the game?"

"The winning side?" Jadeite scoffed, just as Mercury had done, and lifted his sword high, bringing it down upon Zoisite's with an ear-splitting ring of steel. "You honestly think you are on it?"

"Why not?" Zoisite tossed back with each lightning-quick counterattack and parry. "The Silver Millennium has been defeated. All that remains is for it to be completely destroyed. To ensure that never again will our sovereignty be opposed—never again will anyone dare challenge our might. The Kingdom of Earth shall rise to unparalleled greatness with her age-old oppressors finally gone. Look around you! The victory is already ours!"

"Yes . . . and just what kind of victory is that? Think, Zoisite! We have done Metallia's bidding, and for what? To ensure nothing will be able to stop her when she turns on us and destroys us all? Consumes us like all those other systems that have fallen to her? Is that the kind of victory you want?"

"Is that what Mars told you?" Zoisite parried, but he was much less sure of himself now than he had been denying these same claims from Mercury.

"No," Jadeite said. "It is what any fool with eyes could see: that she is full of naught but evil and lies. We just didn't want to see it before, closed ourselves to it. What choice did we have? We chose to submit and keep our lives, and all that glory she promised us—that power she let us taste—only sealed our fates. We were weak—I was weak to give in to her, to pull you down with me. But no longer."

His words resonated with such logic that Zoisite lashed out at him all the harder, all too eager to prove Jadeite wrong, and make what he wanted to be, true. A thin shiv of ice sprang to his free hand; and he slashed with it as he pushed Jadeite away from him. His comrade's grunt was indication enough that he had made contact. It brought a grin of triumph, however brief, to Zoisite's lips as he stumbled back on his exhausted legs, trembling and fighting for breath.

"If she were as wrong as you say," he fired back while Jadeite clutched his right shoulder—the cut must have been even deeper than Zoisite had hoped for— "then how could her triumph over the Moon Kingdom be this complete? For all its supposed might, the supposed power of the Imperium Silver Crystal, of the Moon Queen, we have seen nothing to indicate it! Tell me, Jadeite, which side is the one full of lies? What tyranny has a right to exist that cannot even put up a decent defense of itself?"

"And you would replace this supposed tyranny with what, Zoisite?" Despite his injury, Jadeite's blade was there to meet Zoisite's next attack, even if he had to switch hands to do it. "One of despair and insufferable agony, death and injustice—"

"No," Zoisite exhaled sharply. "Never injustice. That is the Moon Queen's forte. How many souls had to perish so that the Silver Millennium might enjoy its feasts, its grand balls—how long can one _delude_ herself so when this system is suffering—" He had been right from the beginning—right to create such powerful ships to combat the spreading evil, and Queen Serenity had cringed like a coward from the victory they would have surely, and swiftly, brought her. How did she like those ships now, he wondered? Was she cowering from them in her Palace like the poor, false deity she was? Like all the other paper tigers he had sentenced to oblivion for their sins, their hubris?

"I will have my revenge," he swore as he beat Jadeite back up the steps, "if I have to push you all the way to her chamber door myself. The Moon Queen will be brought to task for her crimes against us, Jadeite, even if that means she and her precious daughter must pay with their lives—"

Jadeite's higher ground gave him the upper hand, his blow landing like a bludgeon against Zoisite's sword and, imbued seemingly with all the fire that remained within, forcing the slighter man back in a hurry. "And you think _that_ is justice?" he hissed, his voice cold as his eyes—cold as the ice short sword that shattered against his blade.

"Yes!" Zoisite's left hand stung, but he hadn't a moment to assess his physical injuries when a much deeper wound festered in his gut—in his soul. "Have you forgotten what you are—what we came into this world to be? Metallia recognized us, Jadeite, as the rulers we are we divine right—the gods themselves, instruments of real change in this world that were just being wasted under the Silver Millennium— We are her instruments of revenge!"

Jadeite parried his swing, but something changed in his ferocity—a final spark of hope that winked out at his old comrade's words. "No," he said, and it was as though to himself. "It was _never_ for her."

Zoisite's teeth clenched in a silent growl. He had had enough of Jadeite's thwarting his progress, his traitorous talk, and his hesitation despite all of it to finish Zoisite like he professed he was so determined to do. He kicked out at his old comrade and thrust his sword sharp in his frustration, eager to be done with this senseless battle and on his way. He was prepared for Jadeite's blade to be there to meet his.

It was not.

Instead, Zoisite's sank deep into flesh, burying itself in Jadeite's side beneath his sword arm. He had not even raised his blade in his own defense. As Zoisite stared, eyes wide at what he had done, it fell from Jadeite's hand to clatter on the stone steps, and the fingers from which it fell wrapped instead around Zoisite's, and around the guard of his sword, as if to make sure the other would not be tempted to pull it back out.

"Jadeite . . ." Zoisite searched the other's face for an answer to the question he suddenly could not voice, like he were drowning. "Why. . . ."

Jadeite did not answer. His body forced him to breathe, and with the sharp intake of breath his legs failed him. As he began to sink, Zoisite's free hand slid around his waist to support him, the other twisting itself free of his grip to do the same. It was an instinctive reaction, to catch a fallen comrade. No matter that only moments ago that comrade had been trying to put an end to him.

Jadeite's weight, the unevenness of the stairs beneath them, and Zoisite's own trembling limbs sent them awkwardly down. The edges of the stairs dug hard into Zoisite's shins and hips, twisting his already damaged leg beneath their weight before they finally came to a stop.

When they had, Zoisite, his arms still locked around the other, pulled himself back from Jadeite, his shaking fingers flying to where what little of his blade still protruded from Jadeite's side.

The name of a god Zoisite had not prayed to since he was a small boy was on his lips as he watched his friend's blood flow too quickly over his own sword, falling dark against the pale stone steps. Like everything else had occurred in a dream, this reality hit him with more clarity than had even the war in outer space—and he clung all the more desperately for it to the wish that this were the dream, that he would wake and find himself back home in his palace in Siam, and Endymion alive, and Nephrite—and Kunzite, who as far as he knew had already joined the rest. . . .

He had to undo it. There had to be a way to undo it. With Metallia on his side, he could do anything, could he not? Because he could not bear it if he were responsible for one more comrade's death, one less person to remain with him in this doomed world. Tears blurred his vision, burning on his cheeks and in his throat as he reached urgently for the hilt of his own sword to withdraw it.

"Don'—" Jadeite's grip was fierce around his even in his degraded condition, but it was the command more than anything that stopped Zoisite. Somehow he managed to force a laugh, bitter though it was. "Damn it, Zoisite. . . . You have a clear shot and you can't hit something a little more vital. . . ."

"What do you mean—Jadeite, my God, what I've done to you." What _I've_ done. . . . He shook the words from his head. It was not he that was to blame, when all this time Jadeite had had the physical advantage. . . . "Why did you do it—why did you just _let_ me do this to you? You could have parried, you could have easily batted me away that time! Why . . . why did you . . . When you knew—you must have known— You know I can't . . ."

"It was the only way," Jadeite told him, and somehow his voice remained the steadier of the two. "I thought the only way I'd stop you from realizing your goal and get you to see sense . . . If Mercury's death was not enough to make you see we were wrong, if you would not take me at my word about Endymion, then maybe you'd see through the lies if one of your own died at your hands."

"How—"

The pain welled up inside Zoisite at that so that he could not deny it even if he had wanted to—that he had wounded his friend mortally. That his Prince was truly dead and he felt so hollow, like an empty jar, without a purpose left in the world—nothing but this fathomless guilt that nothing would suppress because he had been so weak, so greedy for some imagined vengeance that he had thought like a fool would solve everything.

Because he had followed Jadeite into that darkness and embraced it.

"How could you!" It all came out in a sob, the accusation tearing itself from his lips in his anguish. "How could you do this to me? _Jadeite!_"

"I didn't want to live without our Prince," the other confessed— "knowing we had been responsible for his death. Knowing nothing we did would ever bring him back, or account for what we did. We are each one of us complicit in it. And now, the Silver Millennium will fall, and there is nothing left—"

"What am I supposed to do?" Zoisite choked out.

Jadeite did not answer him. A single spot of blood, like a bright ruby, darkened the corner of his mouth, but his hand was covered in it as he cradled the side of Zoisite's face. The young man was too stunned as he sat on his hands and knees over his friend to protest the warm stickiness of it against his skin—or the cold of the hand beneath. All he felt was the tenderness of that touch, and the cruel finality of it.

"Forgive me, Zoisite," Jadeite said, his voice dropping now to a murmur, his breaths so shallow Zoisite could hardly feel them. "I know you have every right to despise me for what I did to you, for dragging you into this mess. But I really am grateful for every moment I've known you—believe me, even for this."

He let his hand drop back to his side, but Zoisite reached for it when he felt the touch slipping from his skin. He was not even sure why he did it. Unwilling to let that last bit of warmth slip from him without a fight, perhaps—desperate, perhaps, to find in it some trace of the affection and camaraderie he had once begun to know and thrown away, as if it were not too late to regain them if he simply held on—as if he had not missed his chance long ago. Without it, he was completely alone. He murmured Jadeite's name, then shouted it, but received no reply. The cold blue eyes that continued to stare into his showed no more sign of life behind them.

The cry that tore itself from Zoisite's lips had been too long in coming, he would not have been able to hold it back even if he had predicted it, so insufferable was this agony that seized his whole person and made him tremble uncontrollably. There was no room left in him for shame, nor was there anyone remaining in the courtyard to hear him succumb to his grief. The sheer ferocity of it forced the air from his lungs, and he wished the pain would strike him dead as well and end his suffering.

Jadeite had been right. Mercury had been right. Why could he not have seen the truth when there was still a chance—when his Prince and Master, whom he had been born to serve just as his old friend said, was still alive? He had failed them all, betrayed them, and no amount of attesting to Metallia's strength could excuse what he had done to them. Everything Jadeite said had been correct—how weak he had been, so eager to believe that his soul was not as irretrievably lost as it was. And as for Endymion—yes, he might as well have killed his Prince himself.

There was nothing left to do for it. The battle in the atmosphere still waged, but he could no longer tell which side was winning; it would all end the same, in annihilation for both sides by Metallia, whose dark miasma of a body would only continue to spread over the world until it had choked out all light, and all life. She had played him for a fool. Nothing he could do would stop her, or even turn the tides of what had already been set in motion. The only question was whether he perished now or in the coming flood.

It was a coward's way out, but he would rather not bear witness that final terrible moment before his world was snuffed out of existence. And in any case, he was damned already.

His hand no longer shook as, determination renewed, a dagger of ice crystallized in his right hand one final time. The short, thin blade, curved on one edge like some great tooth, was elegant in its form as though with all the grace he had so eagerly squandered—and so sharp he did not even feel its cold cut as it drew a stream of blood from his thumb. He would feel no pain but the first initial prick if he used it now to cut his wrists—or quicker yet, if he delivered himself one swift slash across the side of his throat.

Zoisite did neither. He aimed instead for the agony that blossomed in his chest, and the monster still coiled within, fighting to regain control—knowing it was the more prolonged option, but desperate to kill what tortured him most. No physical pain could be worse than that which already seized him in his very core; it could only serve to absolve him now, even if only a little, of his grave, unforgivable sins. Not even Metallia would stop him from realizing that goal.

Pressing the tip of the ice dagger to his diaphragm, he took one final steady breath, and made sure his aim was true.

* * *

End of Part Eight


	11. Epilog

Epilog

Silence ruled in the innermost ring of the Moon Palace, the mournful silence of the dead. It belied the struggle and strife of the four whose bodies lay in the pavilion that overlooked the crater. If not for the crimson that stained their clothes and the swords that lay where they had fallen, it would have seemed as though the four had merely fallen asleep.

Kunzite saw Beryl first, but he paid her little attention. The Queen in whose service he had come to the Moon was no more, but he was too numb to feel either relief or disorientation.

The sight of Sailor Venus sprawled across the marble floor left him numb as well, if in a different way. His eyes were still drawn to her fair face, her figure beautiful if beaten, her golden hair spilling around her as it had across his pillow, years ago. He was responsible for this, but all he felt was a deep hollowness inside he could not touch, let alone fill. With the hand he had left, he knelt down to touch her face, his bare fingers caressing her cold cheek as though in farewell, but the absence of life in her did nothing to change how he already felt. He could do nothing for her anymore. He was not sure he would have known what to do if he even could.

He rose and went to his Prince's side instead, where he belonged—where all this time he was supposed to be. The Silver Imperium Crystal lay beside Endymion where it had fallen from the Princess's grasp, scintillating more brilliantly than any diamond in the starlight next to a golden star locket with cracked face glass. It was a tiny thing, really, of insignificant size. It was the one thing Kunzite had come for, what he had promised to retrieve for his great master, what would guarantee her unbeatable power once and for all, yet now he found he had no desire whatsoever to touch the Crystal. Nor had he ever wanted it for himself, though it was free for the taking. His only concern was for his Prince.

He lowered himself to one knee, touching Endymion's hair and cradling his head. There was no question he was gone; the dark wound in his chest spoke clearly enough to that. If I had been only a few minutes sooner, Kunzite thought, would I have been able to see him alive one more time? Would I have been able to save him?

Even now Endymion and the Moon Princess seemed to him like children, his Prince's face recalling the tender camaraderie that had existed between himself and this man he grew up with and loved like a brother, since as far back as he could remember; the Princess, as innocent as that fair girl who had wandered Earthside on her own just to see the boy she loved. Neither of the young lovers deserved this fate. If only he had known what would happen—if only there had been some way to hold on to that love and loyalty he had felt for his Prince, to build it strong around him like impenetrable shield so that even Metallia's darkness could never have wormed its way in.

A spot of moisture darkened Endymion's chest, and Kunzite realized belatedly that the tear had come from him, even when he had felt himself numb inside—as numb as the side of his face that Venus had damaged in her last attack and the eye with which he could no longer see. Numb as the singed remains of his left arm wrapped tightly in his cape. That did not mean his heart was not breaking inside from his anguish and remorse, however, even if he could not feel it.

The sound of footfalls on the marble reached Kunzite's ear and he rose quickly, backing away from Endymion and the three women and hiding in the shadows behind a pillar. He did not wish to leave his Prince's side, but even more than that, he did not want to be caught here and blamed for these murders he did not commit, guilty though he knew he nonetheless was.

It was Queen Serenity who entered the pavilion, Artemis and Luna close behind. In her shimmering silver gown, perhaps the only one on this world still unmarred by the fighting and destruction outside, she seemed to him a cold mirage. Even her reaction to the scene was that of a cruel and beautiful angel, unable to shed a tear even at the death of her own child. As Artemis gaped in panicked disbelief, and Luna clutched a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry, staggering on her feet, the Moon Queen only swept toward her daughter and the Prince with furrowed brow. With aching tenderness she gazed upon their faces, but no emotion shown through; nor did Kunzite envy her the lot that had befallen her as the Moon Queen, to have trained herself over a thousand years to be a rigid and unyielding regent to the point she could no longer shed even a tear for her own daughter's demise.

She knelt to retrieve the Silver Crystal and the broken locket, listening to a few faint, garbled bars of its sad, tinny melody before placing the locket in Endymion's lifeless hand. Kunzite could bear to watch no more, and made a hasty exit. What of his comrades, he still did not know. It had been perhaps only minutes since he left them on the great steps, but it already felt like hours.

On the other side of the Palace, the fires still burned over the rooftops, their wild flames reaching high into the heavens, licking even at the airships that still battled above, the roar of their cannons blending together into a single, terrible hum that rolled over the planet in building, undissipating waves. As though the proverbial scales had been lifted from his eyes, for the first time Kunzite watched that clumsy airborne dance as though it were an illusion, some nightmarish vision disconnected from himself that he prayed to wake up from. Yet he knew he had been a part of it, and his regret lay in his gut like a heavy stone.

He turned his gaze down and surveyed the end result of the battle that had taken place on the great steps. The bodies of the Sailor Soldiers lay where they had fallen, unmoving; and, despite his actions before, he knew they had died in honor. Nephrite he could tell at a glance was gone to him, but the other two of his comrades—

He recognized Zoisite's form huddled over Jadeite's lifeless body and hurried down to where they were as fast as he was able, hope rising feebly within him which he clung to with all that he had left.

When Kunzite reached them, he put his hand to Zoisite's shoulder to rouse him, and was taken aback when the young man fell toward him at the touch. Kunzite was forced to his knees in order to catch him, and he turned Zoisite over across his lap with his good arm, expecting to find his younger friend either in tears or—as was often Zoisite's way—bitter laughter.

He found neither, and it was all he needed for that minute spark of hope that still burned inside him to be snuffed out completely.

The hilt of a dagger of ice protruded from Zoisite's middle, melting as his blood ran out from under it, and with the shift in position his hand fell limply from its grip. The skin of his neck, his face where Kunzite touched it, holding his comrade to him as best and as tight as he was able with his one good arm, was still warm—as warm as Zoisite had ever been in life—his parted lips still faintly pink. Perhaps as little as seconds had passed since he drew his last breath—there was no way for Kunzite to know—but there was none now. No heartbeat, no twitch in his knitted brow.

"Zoisite . . . why couldn't you have waited?" he found himself muttering, letting out a shaking breath of his own; but he knew better than to expect an answer.

He knew better than to think if he apologized now—for all of it—it would make a difference.

Why couldn't you have waited for me? Just a little bit longer. We could have been free from her forever, together. . . .

Fresh shells popped and the roar of their impact echoed in the distance. It made Kunzite raise his eyes, and when he did, he saw the Moon Queen standing at the top of the staircase. Pure and cold as ice itself, the blood drained from her already white skin as she looked out across the rooftops at the same sight that had greeted him. She descended a couple of stairs slowly, then sank down upon them like some despondent young girl on a curb, looking out at the damage they had wrought in the courtyard below, the death, the young, noble women who had fallen in her service. . . .

She looked everywhere but at Kunzite, but he knew she saw him there, holding his comrade's body. The two aliens did, and were not shy about letting him know it.

"The Silver Millennium has truly come to an end. There is no longer any denying that fact."

The Moon Queen spoke softly, but in the still air Kunzite heard her as clearly as though she were speaking into his mind. Her voice overflowed with a deep sadness and regret like he could not begin to imagine, that made his own grief pale in comparison, and he found himself staring at her in awe.

"My daughter is dead, as is Endymion. . . . I've lost all that matters to me. And those of my people who still live—there is nothing I can do to save them from their fates. If the Earthmen do not first do away with them, this world will when it falls. We are finished, and I have failed at my purpose. I have failed them all."

"My Queen. . . ."

It was Luna who spoke, even if it was through her tears. "Surely there was no way we could have known—surely this tragedy was beyond even your power to prevent."

The Queen turned to her with pain etched in her pale eyes. "Perhaps you are right, Luna, but it is not beyond my power to correct it, even if only in what small way I can. Even if it means breaking the laws I have sworn to uphold. When such laws were written into being, no one could have imagined what has happened here this night."

She held out her clenched hand before her, and as she unfolded her fingers, the Silver Imperium Crystal that rested inside caught the light and glowed, illuminating her face with it. Even though it only reflected the light of destruction, to Kunzite as he watched, there never appeared a more pure light than that which emanated from Serenity's hand.

As though drawn to it, gently he laid Zoisite back down against the steps beside Jadeite, and went to kneel before her. Artemis and Luna recoiled at his proximity, and no doubt at the grotesqueness of his wounds as well, but the Queen did not even acknowledge his presence. It made a sob that he quickly stifled rise in Kunzite's throat. After all he had done, he only desired now for that goddess's gaze to turn upon him, even if it held only condemnation. He could never say he did not deserve it wholly. Just do not ignore me, he thought, please, do not write me out of existence just yet. Not until she glimpsed the sorrow in him, he prayed, the regret he knew not how to adequately express in his bent head, and the total obedience with which he would have allowed her to condemn him to oblivion if she so chose at that moment.

"My Queen," he whispered in a raw throat, not certain if she even heard him.

It seemed as though hours went by before he felt her cool fingers brush his hair. It was only one brief moment, but it was all the recognition he required. In that minute touch, so light as to be almost imagined, was all the understanding, all the forgiveness he never deserved, and it made his heart feel as though it would burst.

He looked up, and saw that she was already rising again to her feet.

"Artemis," she said to the young alien man, making his eyes go wide as he stuttered a choked, "Your majesty?"

"Go to Sailors Saturn and Pluto, Artemis. Tell them their Queen needs one last favor of them."

He nodded his affirmation, but his eyes remained warily on Kunzite and he appeared reluctant to leave just yet.

"There is one thing that I still might do to combat this evil," Serenity told him and Luna, "if my heart can bear the power of the Imperium Silver Crystal. It will take all the strength I have left, all the strength left in this planet, but it may yet be possible to correct, if only in some small way, the mistakes I have made.

"I haven't the power to defeat this darkness, nor to undo everything it has done. But I can seal it away. I know not for how long, but perhaps it will be long enough for my daughter and her guardians to find enough strength in themselves to destroy it as I could not."

"Your majesty . . ." Luna began, uncertainly.

"We will send their souls to another time," the Queen said, answering her unspoken question. "All of them. All who have perished, who have been robbed of their lives tonight by that demon. I could give them a future, a clean slate—a bright new world in which they might start over. In which they might stand a chance."

The Moon Queen lowered her eyes, her fingers clenching around the Crystal and holding it to her breast with the determination her gaze did not necessarily hold.

"It will cost me my life. However, even that is a small price to pay for my daughter's future."

Artemis turned and ran off in the direction of the Crystal Tower to obey, as if suddenly shaken from a spell. The Queen, too, turned and strode with purpose back up the stairs, Luna at her side. Afraid of being left behind where there was only death and the past to accompany him, and feeling not uninvited, Kunzite followed a good distance behind.

Metallia loomed directly above them as they made their way across the crater floor, but Serenity not once looked up or wavered in fear, but held her head high, her gaze forward. The long silver pools splashed over their sides when blasts shook the ground beneath them, making it seem as though the computers that lay beneath their feet might at any moment be torn up like viscera from the ground. Was it Kunzite's imagination, or was it becoming more difficult to fill his lungs with air?

Saturn and Pluto were waiting for them when they arrived at the Tower, the former small and detached in the colors of decay, the latter baring Kunzite's way like the tall, proud priestess she was, like a savage warrior of some far-distant, more primitive time, when the gods still talked to men. Nor did he protest. He did not particularly care to follow the Moon Queen into her sanctum.

He turned instead and watched the black body of Metallia inch closer, like some dark and heavy storm cloud threatening a downpour. Her time was finished, though she did not know it yet. Even now, he could hear her blood-sated glee, her certainty, like a faint echo within himself, with each far off roar of the ships' guns. He thought with the death of Endymion and his comrades, nothing would bring him pleasure again, but that thought did. At last, she would suffer as she had made him suffer. At last, her reign of evil over this system would soon be at an end.

He would remember this night, he vowed to himself, in whatever future he found himself—he would find those he had lost and he would make sure the likes of this night were never permitted to happen again.

Even as a part of him already knew that was a lie.

—o—

_What is this feeling? This queer, this alien sensation? The last vision I remember before succumbing to the darkness was Metallia's grinning visage above me, blotting out the stars, but now. . . ._

__

A strange glow overwhelms me, a wonderful warmth that envelops me, takes me, and I am powerless to halt its progress, nor do I want to. In its hold I am weightless, helpless and safe as in the womb, and damned if I ever say I am reluctant to leave the confines of my body's flesh, and the corruption that overtook it, the blood of others' that stains it, far behind me. Finally I feel myself free of that darkness's hold, and even if I know somehow I cannot be rid of it completely, even if it is only locked away inside me, I am more grateful for this blissful quiet than I can ever express. I feel as though I could die from this happiness, but am I not dead already? And the silence that spills out over this world—after all that we have suffered, have you ever heard more beautiful music?

I can feel your presence near me, princess, as well as my master's, and in that I am complete. Floating through space, no longer a vast dark sea but illuminated with a billion brilliant stars—floating, all of us, to a brighter existence. Your fates have been intertwined with mine, and I know this is the doing of the Silver Imperium Crystal. What else but that—what else but the goodness and compassion of the Moon Queen could free us from this evil, and silence if only for one rapturous moment in time its incessant roar?

You asked me to tell you a story, Mercury, and for so long I thought it had reached its end. Now I know that this is only a turning point. The future is yet to be written, and us in it. What it will bring I cannot know, nor do I know how far ahead Serenity will send us, or if it will even be possible for us to find one another again in it—though somehow I believe with all me being we will. But I see in that future nonetheless many wondrous things—an easier world for all of us, perhaps not entirely free of conflict, but at last aware, once again, of the precious rarity of all life.

Perhaps in the future, those of us who were there will dream of the days when the Silver Millennium was wrapped in all the glory and gaiety of its height, and wonder why those dreams are so bittersweet, so much more vivid than our waking reality—why we wake mourning alliances and hearts broken and the soul's hopes crushed, but most of all mourning the unearthly beauty that is more real, more precious to us than we can explain in any words; and from their primal memory men will write of how somewhere, beneath the stars, a dead sea lies dark and sombre, but on its shores still gleams and glows in golden radiance an ivory city, beautiful as a poet's dream, silent as a city of the dead.

I will not forget you in that future, princess, whatever it may bring. That I promise you. And with any luck, someday we will find each other again—all of us. I pray that time we may get it right, and that fortune will send us to an era when the evil of fear and distrust no longer rules Mankind's heart and mind, but in which peace and understanding prevail.

_Until then, princess, I can part from you in good conscience—your forever faithful. . . ._

—o—

Tokyo, 1978 C.E.—

The young boy wandered once again away from his parents, the sight of the big city spread out around the hospital drawing him like a magnet to the windows. Tokyo Tower, its lights blinking feebly in the distance against the overcast sky, cast a spell on him like he couldn't explain, as though beckoning him to itself.

There was something out there for him. That much it seemed to tell him. He did not yet know what, or when he would find it—or it, him—but he knew it was out there nonetheless.

He was a precocious six-year-old. That was what the nurses said when they saw him wandering the halls as though lost in his own train of thought, his curious greenish eyes taking in everything and nothing at the same time. That was why they didn't mind him exploring the facility on his own. That was why, they said, he was taking this move to the main island so well, and his mother's illness that had precipitated it. Whether that were true or not, he could not say; he only knew how to be what he was, but he was not sure he really was the person whom everyone called by the name his parents had given him.

But he loved the city he could now call home, the big city that was to him like some huge and wondrous living thing, and the strange music it sang to him.

He hummed a bit as he wandered, and before he knew it, he had somehow found himself in the birthing ward, standing before the window that separated new fathers from their newborn infants.

Mr Urawa alone stood at the window of the nursery with him, but the boy did not know that was his name, nor did they introduce themselves. He watched the man watch his son—only a day old—sleeping soundly in his crib, all wrapped up in white, while the other infants cried around him until they were red in the face. Mr Urawa had to smile at that, and the pride he felt for his kid nearly brought a tear to his eye.

"Which one's yours?"

The boy looked over at the question. "What?"

"You have a new baby brother or sister in there?"

The boy gave the question some thought, then shook his head. He'd just ended up here, but he didn't know how to explain that to the man.

Nor did the man seem to need an explanation as he smiled in understanding. Everyone seemed old to the boy, but Mr Urawa still looked younger than most men who were starting to gray like he was. He seemed like someone who knew a lot, like a doctor or a scientist, though maybe, the boy conceded, it was just because he was wearing glasses.

Mr Urawa pointed at the window. "That's my son," he said proudly. "The one in the second to last row, sound asleep."

The boy followed his directions to the one infant that was not making a fuss, and to the face that was pudgy even by a baby's standards and the big, dark eyes. "We're naming him Ryo."

"Ryo," the boy repeated to himself. He wasn't sure why the sound of that name, common though it was, stuck with him—like deja vu, or when he knew he had to remember something his mother told him and just couldn't quite get it.

Mr Urawa let out a deep breath, almost in relief, and nodded. "It's a good, strong boy's name. Don't you think?"

"More than my name," the boy said.

Mr Urawa seemed surprised to hear something so adult-like from this six-year-old. He asked, "And what's that?"

"Kaoru."

"But that's a nice classical, noble name. 'Fragrance' . . ."

"It's a girl's name."

Mr Urawa laughed aloud at that. When he had sobered, he apparently didn't have anything contradictory to say to that—and besides, the boy seemed so convinced already—so he changed the subject.

"In any case," he said, "I hope perhaps it will help to make him into a strong, resilient person. Or maybe that's just my wishful thinking. But a boy needs to be tough of spirit if he's going to be moving around a lot. See," he said with a slight tilt of his head, as though the boy had needed more of an explanation (or maybe, the boy thought, the man just really needed someone else to talk to), "in my line of work, my family won't have the luxury of staying in any one place too long. That's got to be hard on a growing boy. Don't you think so? Change is generally good for all living things, but you have to allow them enough time to put out _some_ roots, right, if they're going to establish themselves? Especially when they're young."

The boy shrugged. "I guess so," he said, but he wasn't really sure what the man meant about roots. He wasn't sure he agreed with the thing about change, either. People told him the same thing to make him feel better about coming to the city, but he didn't know he needed cheering up.

Like how they called him a gloomy boy because he thought too much, and they thought it must be because his mother was in the hospital, but the boy never felt particularly gloomy to begin with.

"Well, maybe you'll understand when you're a little older."

The boy looked up to see Mr Urawa smiling down at him. "You'll understand for sure when you have kids of your own."

The boy wrinkled his nose. Him, have kids? The thought was just gross.

Mr Urawa laughed at him again for his expression, then started as he turned back to the window. "Look!" he whispered. "My little boy's waking up."

The boy stood on his tiptoes in order to see the baby his father called Ryo stirring out of his nap. Ryo did not cry out or raise any sort of fuss, just balled his fists clumsily and opened his eyes. They were wide and black and the deepest the boy had seen on just about anyone, let alone a one-day-old infant. They were like two galaxies swirling around super-massive blackholes.

And they seemed to be directed straight at him.

The boy thought for a moment that his heart stopped in his chest, because it was almost like the baby Ryo knew him just by the way he was staring, hard and unblinking and completely calm—as though he recognized that something deep down inside that the Tokyo Tower with its blinking light seemed to be calling.

Making the boy feel like he had been here before. What was that his mother had said about karma again?

"Have you ever seen anything so miraculous?" Mr Urawa said, startling the boy out of his stare, and he couldn't help nodding in agreement, even though it was clear the man was only speaking from fatherly pride.

He wasn't sure why the baby Ryo made him feel this way, but someday, he knew, he would figure it out. The feeling was too strong for him not to. Someday, everything in his life would make a whole lot more sense.

Until then, he decided, he could be patient with his given name, and with his mother's disease and his family's moving around and adults' misunderstanding him. Somehow he knew the reward when it came would be worth that and a whole lot more.

* * *

End of Rubies in Zoisite

* * *

_Special thank you to Soylent Green (she's made of people!) who first hosted this story on her site, the Scrumpdiddlyumptious Dark Kingdom Love Revival, and provided invaluable encouragement in the early stages of its writing._

__

Thanks also to Komadori, who gave me the push I needed to get back into the swing of things and renew my efforts when this story was in a slump.

Thanks as well to everyone at forums-dot-shitennou-dot-com for the support and feedback and for putting up with my lurkerness. :) I know everyone has their own takes on these characters, and I appreciate the encouragement despite that, and the ability to explore different ideas openly because of it.

_And to everyone who's read or reviewed, my heartfelt appreciation. This was my first fanfic that_ wasn't_ just for shits-and-giggles, and I don't think I could have made it all the way through without the support of such an awesome fandom. Much love!_

_Rubies in Zoisite, 1999-2008_


End file.
